At the height of the smartphone era, a terminal that was mainly used for calling suddenly appeared, and attracted nearly 2,000 investments through crowdfunding, which attracted a lot of attention. That is the future model “NichePhone-S”.
The terminal is a simple card-type mobile phone that supports tethering, but does not allow browsing at all. The communication method is 3G. The point that it was released as a SIM lock free mobile phone, not from a major carrier that has an Android mobile phone in its lineup, is also a point that attracted attention. In response to the popularity of crowdfunding, the handling of home appliance mass retailers has also started.
Card-type SIM lock-free mobile phone "NichePhone-S"Fits perfectly in your handThis device was released by a company called Future Model. NichePhone-S is the company's first model, having never developed or sold a mobile phone. Why did the company decide to sell mobile phones? In this day and age, what were the chances of success in aiming for a simple mobile phone instead of a smartphone? I asked Qu Liang, the leader of Future Models, about these questions.
Future Model Qu Liang――I don't think your company's main business is the development of mobile phones. Excuse me, but before asking about the development history of NichePhone-S, please tell us first what kind of business your company usually does.
Mr. Song Established in 2009, the company manufactures and sells smartphone accessories and subcontracts to manufacturers. After graduating from a Japanese university (Mr. Qu is from China) and working as a mobile phone sales staff for about a year, I started my current company. The company's business mainly deals with the case of "X-Doria" and the case of Nike. From around last year (2016), we started developing lights such as "DONUT LIGHT" and wireless earphones "KOU". In terms of scale, the OEM business is the largest.
―― Why did a company that used to sell so-called accessories turn its attention to the mobile phone itself?
[Updated: December 25, 2017 18:00 *Some of the descriptions have been revised because non-public information was included in the future model's business partners. ]
Mr. Song: I used to make accessories for smartphones, but there are too many smartphones. The biggest motivation for developing NichePhone-S was that I wanted to make a phone-only terminal. It's the same for me, but with a smartphone, there are too many things to do, so it's hard to communicate. On the other hand, with LINE, you can reply with just a stamp, but that is not enough communication. Therefore, I came to think that I wanted to make a terminal dedicated to telephone calls. You don't need a big one if you're using a call-only terminal. It is better to make it as small as possible as a second mobile phone. That's why it ended up in the form of the current NichePhone-S.
── However, it must have been quite difficult to create a simple mobile phone that supports Japanese. I don't think it's possible to buy from a Chinese ODM and sell it immediately.
Mr. Song: Japanese feature phones are unique from a global perspective. However, before that, I was worried about whether this product would really sell (laughs). I was trying to publish it half as a hobby, so I couldn't invest that much, so I made it with the feeling that I should be able to speak at least Japanese.
── Certainly, it seems difficult to determine whether it will sell. Is the manufacturing ODM in China?
Mr. Song Yes. I found this operator at the Mobile World Congress (the world's largest mobile phone trade fair held annually in Barcelona, Spain). There were other similar products at the time, some even thinner than the NichePhone-S, but unfortunately they all only support up to 2G. 5G is coming soon, so why is there no 3G (laughs)? I thought that if there was 3G among them, it would be a chance.
――Isn't it difficult to support 3G and frequency?
Mr. Song: It was difficult. The specifications were quite special, and the factory had almost no experience making them. In Europe, Africa, Russia, etc., we could use what was available (2G), but for Japan, we had to remake everything from the antenna to the substrate.
When I asked for the production, I didn't have the same board, so I took the board of the smartphone and remodeled it from scratch. After making the board, I repeated tests to see if I could make calls and communicate properly. Another difficulty was the display, and it was quite a challenge to make the smartphone board compatible with such a small display.
―― However, the 800MHz band is not supported.
Mr. Song: We plan to expand the supported frequencies for terminals that we develop in the future.
―― The fact that you used a smartphone board means that it's an Android base, isn't it?
Mr. Song Yes. But most of the Android functions have been removed (laughs). I deleted it until I almost cried. The company that develops the system also thinks about how to make it easier for Japanese users to use, as most people do not use feature phones. Building this from scratch (on an OS other than Android) would be much more difficult.
――Perhaps because the smartphone is the base, tethering is also possible. Better yet, didn't you make it possible to browse on its own?
Mr. Song: That's not true. If it's this size, you won't be able to use the net. It is better to be able to make calls and emails. If other functions are attached, this terminal will become like a smartphone.
――What speeds does 3G support?
Mr. SongActual measurements show a throughput of about 6 Mbps. However, depending on the location and time, 1 Mbps may be cut.
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