With 90.5% of shipments, doesn’t it look like the kind of extremely grand, gorgeous and dazzling fireworks that are hard to catch?
We emptied the shelves and shouted hoarsely, thinking we had won.
When I opened the financial report, I found that Apple alone had taken away 83.4% of the profits of the entire industry.
At that moment, I realized that this was not a war, but just picking up some scraps of silver in someone's back garden.
The pain of supply chain is a lucid dream
It sounds quite magical. Our mobile phones and our internal organs are all in the hands of others.
What matters to Qualcomm is the chip, but what cannot be circumvented by Samsung's monopoly is the screen. Even the camera that is used to boast that it can "photograph the moon" is just a piece of glass if it doesn't have a Sony sensor.
Do you remember the price increase of memory sticks that year? Like crazy.
From the end of 2016 to 2017, the prices of solid-state drives and memory modules continued to rise. At that time, people within the industry wanted to say it but stopped talking. They just stated that supply and demand were out of balance. However, everyone had already smelled the meaning of "made for others".
As long as Samsung makes the slightest move, domestic mobile phones will be seriously affected. This is not a normal business practice, but a unilateral and direct notification.
It’s been seven years, has things changed?
Time flies and it’s 2026.
I originally thought that the story would be told in a different way, but when I turned on the news, photos of Huang Renxun and Lee Jae-yong eating fried chicken in Seoul filled the screen. After just one meal, the nerves of mobile phone manufacturers around the world became tense.
Nvidia exists like a hungry beast. In order to feed the monster-like AI computing power, it has almost exhausted all the production capacity of memory chip manufacturing.
The price of LPDDR5 has tripled, making it difficult to obtain the goods even if you have the funds. Are the purchasing staff of major mobile phone manufacturers either in a state of urging the supply of materials, or are they in the process of urging the supply of materials?
You see, the script hasn't changed. It’s just that it used to be a screen and memory, but now it’s computing power. The shackles changed their style and were still around our necks.
but……
It's not like nothing has changed.
In the crack, there is light
It's a little different now. As Samsung and Hynix closed their doors to mobile phone manufacturers, I noticed a detail:
Xiaomi began to inquire about prices from domestic storage manufacturing companies, and Huawei was reported to have taken over the production capacity of a certain domestic manufacturer.
What's this called? This is called "family separation" forced by "food shortage".
Although domestically produced particles, screens and chips are still in the process of catching up, just like the Kirin 9020, which Huawei finally returned to, its running scores are still difficult to match Qualcomm's flagship, and the power consumption when playing "Genshin Impact" is basically difficult to suppress.
But it came back after all. Four years after its backbone was broken, it gave birth to new bones. Even though this bone was not hard enough, it grew on itself, so you could feel the pain without looking at the weather.
In addition, there are the names hidden behind mobile phones. Among them, AAC Technology has turned motors and speakers into art; Lens Technology has mastered tricks on a piece of glass; and Pixel Point Semiconductor has made frame insertion chips a standard configuration for gaming phones.
They are no longer a simple foundry, they have begun to define what a "good phone" is.
So, what have we been arguing about these past ten years?
It seems that there are always two different groups of people. One group claims that "domestic products have risen", while the other group sneers that "it is still just an assembly plant."
In fact, both are correct, and not all of them are correct.
Reality is a twisted product.
In fact, we are really still struggling in the dilemma of "small profits but quick turnover". By this time in 2026, the mobile phone field may even usher in a cold winter. The cost of rising storage prices will eventually have to be borne by you and me.
On the other side, moss is slowly growing in those places that are stuck. It is not a zero-sum game without change, but a long and even slightly tragic climb.
Perhaps, there has never been a savior, nor a one-night counterattack.
The only thing left is to grit your teeth and sharpen your bones until they are a little harder when prices are rising, supply is cut off, and blockades occur.
Even if it's just a little bit harder.
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