Say, does the name “G’Five” ring any bell to you? Hint: it’s a cell phone brand.
If not, what about this logo?
And the strapline of the brand is “Give me five for a better life”?
Still no idea? No worries, you are not to be blamed. It’s a Chinese brand, and frankly we Chinese, including this phone geek, had never heard of this thing until recently. Yeah, funny but true.
Yesterday this message hit Chinese tech portals saying this never-heard-of G’Five has made itself among the biggest phone makers of the world. That’s quite a bit surprise. Usually when something big, in whatever sector, is about to merge, we’d see some signs, like lightening always foretells a good thunder boom on its way. But that’s not the case here. This is the first time most of us ever get to know the brand, yet it’s accompanied by the following achievements already:
- Gartner says G’Five sold 4.3 million units in 2010 Q1, ranked the 9th global sales winner in phone sector.
- Gartner also says G’Five moved another 5.2 million units in 2010 Q2, ranked the 10th this time.
- G’Five itself said in 2010 Q3 it moved only 200 thousand units fewer than Huawei, ranked 11th globally.
In one word, it’s like an elephant in the room, only somehow most of us failed to see it.
So who exactly is this G’Five? According to what’s available, G’Five was (and still is) a shanzhai phone maker just like a million others down here. What defines it from all other shanzhaiers is that G’Five focused on emerging markets such as Dubai and India. Source says that it has risen to the 3rd largest in Indian market right after Nokia and Samsung.
The secret of G’Five’s success, according to itself, is the dual-SIM mode. In markets such as India the phone bill generated by roaming and cross-carrier talk would mount up very high, therefore people there prefer to keep more than one USIM cards for different carriers along with them. Thanks to the chipset solutions like those from MTK that every shanzhai phone maker has been relying on, having two USIM cards (sometimes up to FOUR cards) working at the same time is actually a standard feature of all shanzhai phones. This helped it a lot in the battle with big names such as Nokia, LG, Samsung, HTC, etc. Another advantage G’Five has is low price, also much like other shanzhai phones.
Hilariously, the CEO of G’Five just announced a future growth plan, which consists of “coming back” to China as a triumphant medium-to-premium brand, as well as fighting big Chinese companies such as ZTE and Huawei in the global game. Double funny when we have a look at other Chinese phone brands started off shanzhai, successfully “un-shanzhaied” themselves with growth, and only managed to make much smaller bangs in the big picture. Yes I’m talking about K-Touch, Coolpad, and Gionee.
There must be quite a story behind the silent rising of G’Five, and we are very interested in finding it out. Is it great strategy, careful plan, or sheer luck? No one can be certain about that yet. But the morale of the story is at least partly this: Chinese companies should learn to broaden their visions, think globally instead of fighting to death for the leader ship in the big barn they are born in. Yes the barn is pretty darn big, but it still is a barn.
We will keep you guys updated as more backgrounds of G’Five gets dug out. In the mean time, why not have a look at its product catalogue? For more than a few times I thought I was looking at remote cousins of Nokia/Sony Ericsson/Black Berry families, some even appear to have crossed blood with iPhones. Ain’t it amazing.