3: Lin Chen's heart is too dark

That's right, the 11 Chenguang Brand mobile phones just sold were all refurbished!

The batteries, circuit boards, chips, screens… you could say that other than the casing being brand new, those phones were all refurbished devices that had changed hands countless times!

Among these, Lin Chen purchased 13 Nokia 5110 phones for 2,000 yuan from several nearby phone shops.

All 13 of these Nokia 5110s were damaged or malfunctioning and unusable; after Lin Chen repaired them, only 11 were functional, and the remaining two could only be stripped for spare parts.

In the current era, repairing mobile phones was a technical skill, not yet reaching the point where anyone in any small town could fix a phone, as it would be in later generations.

Therefore, in the primitive era of 2002, anyone who could repair mobile phones was a high-caliber talent. In this situation, many phone shops would unwittingly accumulate numerous phones needing repair or refurbishment.

So Lin Chen paid a “high” price, spending 2,000 yuan to procure 13 damaged Nokia 5110s from several phone shops, then repaired and refurbished them, putting on newly manufactured casings to sell as new phones.

Therefore, those consumers who were happily thinking they had snagged a bargain had no idea they had bought a refurbished phone for a price close to that of a new one; they were truly sold out and even helped count the money, grateful to Lin Chen.

It's worth noting that the Nokia 5110 phone was released in November 1998, and it achieved a terrifying sales volume of over 100 million units Globally. In one particular year, it even accounted for 70% of all Great Xia mobile phone sales!

It can be said that Nokia successfully made a name for himself with the Nokia 5110, officially beginning his glorious era. Furthermore, the famous saying “Technology is based on shell replacement” also started with this phone.

So, if one wanted to engage in large-scale refurbishment, there was undoubtedly no better choice than the Nokia 5110, which had an enormous installed base.

As for why Lin Chen went to the trouble and greater expense of replacing the original casings with his own designed phone casings, it’s because dealing in refurbished phones is ultimately a shady business and certainly cannot last long!

It’s fine if no police specifically investigate, but if they do, it’s a sure bust. So, there’s no problem with dealing in refurbished phones, but one must plan the next step carefully.

Lin Chen’s next goal is undoubtedly to establish the reputation of Chenguang Brand mobile phones and earn substantial profits, and once capital is sufficient, to open his own mobile phone factory, thereby starting the path to legitimacy.

As for the issue of phone licenses, that's easy to say. In later generations, famous brands like Tian L, Jin L, Ku L… which one didn't carve out a bloody path from numerous knockoff phones? Did they ever have licenses when they sold knockoff phones?

So Lin Chen’s next goal is clear: to continue selling knockoff phones in the short term to earn money and build his small knockoff phone factory!

At this moment, Lin Chen, clutching the huge sum of 9,320 yuan, strolled down the street, his mind lost in memories—frustrating memories from over twenty years later.

Over twenty years later, desktop and laptop computers were still dominated by the Intel-Microsoft alliance. News of major breakthroughs in domestic CPUs and Graphics Cards spread wildly every year, but the outcome was truly disappointing.

Over twenty years later, although domestic smartphones had made some name for themselves Globally, they were fundamentally very superficial, essentially just phone assembly plants.

Over twenty years later, Great Xia still suffered from the pain of chip imports, still needing to import 538.4 billion chips annually, costing 400 billion US dollars…

Over twenty years later, although cars had transitioned from fuel vehicles to electric vehicles, even after more than twenty years, Great Xia still couldn’t produce fuel vehicles with comprehensive performance comparable to joint-venture cars!

Besides that, in the machine tool sector, the only thing worth mentioning was Beijing Jingdiao, but even this “worth mentioning” was only at a third-tier world standard.

Key core components of domestic high-end machine tools, such as testing instruments, various sensors, and machine tool chips, still heavily relied on imports. Domestic high-end machine tools and CNC machining centers were essentially half-assembled products.

So, while Beijing Jingdiao was something to be proud of, its foundation was too flimsy. If a targeted incident like those against ZTE and Huawei occurred, this small achievement would immediately be ruined.

However, even so, having a Beijing Jingdiao that could be showcased was commendable, as having something is better than nothing.

And why did it take Great Xia 20 years to painstakingly cultivate only one Beijing Jingdiao? Lin Chen, understanding the reason, felt only frustration and anger.

As he pondered, a term reappeared in Lin Chen’s mind: the Wassenaar Arrangement!

Recalling the past, the Great Xia believed that when the Bear Big Brother fell and the COCOM, which restricted the import of various high-precision instruments and equipment, disbanded, their Great Xia would soon usher in a golden age of great development.

It can be said that this so-called Wassenaar Arrangement at least slowed down Great Xia’s technological development by 30%, because just when Great Xia finally managed to develop initial products,

Overseas, more advanced, more powerful, and more functional products immediately flooded into the domestic market, causing the hard-won, breakthrough initial products to die in the cradle.

After all, how could an initial product compare to products that had been sold for countless years, undergone numerous improvements, and increasingly met market demands?

So, after investing heavily in R&D, they ended up losing all their capital. Such tragic cases constantly served as a warning to those who wished to pursue independent R&D!

Therefore, the concepts that independent R&D is terrifying, independent R&D has no future, and independent R&D leads to massive losses were deeply imprinted in the hearts of all Great Xia entrepreneurs, filling them with fear when facing independent R&D!

Reborn in this life, Lin Chen wants Great Xia to undergo a better change this time, even if the effect of his butterfly efforts flapping his wings is minuscule.

But at least he tried, didn't he?

...

Meanwhile, in a certain room.

Lin Chen’s old acquaintance, Peng Ge, was disassembling a mobile phone with a tool. The words “Dawn” were clearly written on the phone.

It was clear that Peng Ge had somehow acquired that Dawn Mobile Phone from a consumer. At this moment, he had just finished disassembling the casing, and the internal view of the phone officially came into his sight.

“This is?!”

Our country is still a major importer of chips, with 538.4 billion chips still needing to be imported in 2022, costing a total of 400 billion US dollars.

A single smartphone does not only have one CPU chip, but requires many chips, including but not limited to: radio transceiver chips, power amplifier chips, memory chips, digital baseband processors, power management chips, GPS navigation receivers, charging/USB controller chips, audio processing chips, touch screen controller chips, screen driver chips, flash memory chips, program processors and memory chips, accelerator chips, power management integrated circuits, BLUETOOTH modules, gyroscope chips, etc.

Therefore, a smartphone often integrates hundreds of chips, large and small. Different chips are responsible for different functions, and hundreds of chips work together to deliver an extraordinary user experience.