Chapter 726: Investing in Sharp

Throughout 2009, with the development of mobile Internet in many parts of the world, users' demand for smartphones began to increase.

According to the research results of relevant institutions, in 2009, the sales revenue of global mobile phone manufacturers reached 156 billion US dollars, and the total sales of mobile phones exceeded 1.1 billion units.

A considerable part of these are still traditional feature phones, but the smartphone market has shown an explosive trend since the second half of 2008, and it is also the only type of mobile phone with a continuous growth in sales and sales volume.

According to estimates, smartphones will continue to maintain sales growth in the next five years. In 2010, the global smartphone market is brewing a major change, and the annual shipment volume will exceed 320 million units.

In the field of smartphones, Nokia is still the world's largest smartphone manufacturer. In 2009, the shipment volume of Nokia-branded smartphones accounted for about 32% of the total sales volume of smartphones, but Nokia's achievements mainly come from cheap smartphones sold in markets such as China and South America. The North American market is still the biggest problem facing Nokia.

The second place among smartphone manufacturers is Honor Electronics' Mate series of mobile phones, which has a global market share of more than 19%, nearly 3 percentage points higher than Apple's iPhone series of 16%.

If Honor Electronics' mid-to-low-end Dopod brand smartphones are added, Honor Electronics' global smartphone market share will be as high as 30%, second only to Nokia - considering that Nokia can only maintain the low-end smartphone market and is gradually shrinking, it is likely that in 2010, its first position in smartphone shipments will be ceded to Honor Electronics.

The remaining two mobile phone manufacturers, Samsung and BlackBerry, have smartphone shipments accounting for 8% and 5% respectively.

Because they misjudged the situation and placed their bets on the GOS system for smartphones, Motorola only launched one Android-based phone last year, and three GOS-based phones. As a result, its overall shipments plummeted, and its market share in the smartphone market is less than 4%...

Japanese mobile phone manufacturers such as Sony Ericsson and Sharp are even worse off. In this year's smartphone market share, all of them are classified as other brands...

Yes, from the current point of view, judging from the shipments of smartphones alone, the GOS system is not successful. Among the three touch-screen smartphone operating systems, iOS, Android and GOS, the Android system, with its rich manufacturers and models, occupies nearly 60% of the market (only counting the shipments of phones with the three operating systems), the iOS system occupies more than 30%, and the market share of the GOS system is less than 10%!

On January 5, 2010, Honor Electronics and Japan's Sharp Corporation jointly announced that Honor Electronics would invest 64 billion yen (about 800 million US dollars) to acquire 9.9% of Sharp's issued shares and become one of Sharp's shareholders.

Honor Electronics' move is to consolidate their supply chain. After all, Sharp was once the inventor and leader of global LCD technology. Even though South Korean LCD panel suppliers including Samsung and LG have threatened it, the LCD screens produced by Sharp are still one of the best quality products on the market.

In order to consolidate the quality of Honor Electronics' current Mate series of mobile phones and cope with the competition from South Korean Samsung Electronics in this field, they naturally need to have a stable supply chain of high-quality mobile phone LCD panels.

Although Honor Electronics had invested in Chinese manufacturers as early as last year to help them speed up the research and development and production of LCD screen technology, at present, the quality of these mobile phone LCD screens is still slightly inferior to that of Japanese and Korean products, and can only be used on the lower-end Dopod brand. Honor Electronics' most core and most successful Mate series of mobile phones still need high-quality LCD screens produced by Japan and South Korea.

Apart from Sharp, this kind of LCD screen can only be obtained from Samsung and LG in South Korea. However, it should be noted that South Korean manufacturers have formed an industrial alliance, and Honor Electronics also needs to guard against the other party cutting off the supply of its mobile phone LCD screens. Therefore, taking advantage of the fact that Japan is being shorted on a large scale and Sharp's LCD business has a little overcapacity, choosing this opportunity to invest in Sharp is also an important move for Honor Electronics.

Barron knew that in his previous life, Taiwan's OEM manufacturer Hon Hai intended to invest in Sharp in 2012, and the two parties had even agreed on the price, but because Sharp's stock price suddenly fell sharply at that time, Hon Hai was ready to reduce the price, but was rejected by Sharp, thus missing the opportunity to invest this time.

However, Hon Hai did not give up. Four years later, taking advantage of the opportunity of Sharp's complete decline, it completed the acquisition of Sharp for 388.8 billion yen (about 3.25 billion US dollars), thereby controlling the company with a 66% stake.

Of course, if Honor Electronics wants to acquire shares in Sharp now, since their situation is much better than it will be more than six years later, the amount of money they need to pay for the same shares will be much higher.

But this investment is strategic and very important for Honor Electronics to consolidate their position in the smartphone market at this time. Therefore, it is impossible to really wait until six years later to acquire it at a lower price. ——Original Time and Space After HTC launched the first smartphone based on Android system, its shipments were once comparable to or even surpassed Apple's, but later it still declined. Honor Electronics will definitely not experience this kind of lesson again.

In fact, Sharp's most important business is their LCD panel business, and their LCD panels are mainly produced in Japan.

Because the shipment volume of Japanese mobile phone brands is very limited at this time, Sharp Company naturally needs to consider the sellers of their mobile phone LCD panels. After Honor Electronics negotiated with them, the two parties hit it off and reached a cooperation agreement. .

"In addition to cutting-edge liquid crystal technology related to low-temperature polysilicon LTPS for high-definition LCD panels and organic light-emitting diode technology under development, Sharp also has medium-sized LCD panels, multi-functional business computers and robotics enterprise solutions, IoT home appliances, automobiles There are six major product technologies including household and industrial electronic components, energy and solar energy. Therefore, not only Honor Electronics, but also many of our other businesses can gain technological enhancement through the acquisition of Sharp..."

This is what Barron discovered after seeing the relevant information of Sharp Company. Therefore, they are bound to win Sharp Company. After all, Sharp Company also has some good technologies in the fields of home appliances, automobiles and energy. But this will only happen after opportunities arise in the future.

The current Sharp company can only accept investment and shareholding. It is not at the end of its rope yet, and they will not be willing to be acquired.