BEIJING-“Please come in, sir, and have a look. The cheapest prices and the best choice.”
No, we have not discovered Beijing’s red-light district, and the time is not midnight. We have come to Xizhimen, an area where narrow streets are lined by small “mom-and-pop” stores, on a typical weekday afternoon. The specialty here: mobile phones of all makes and colors; pagers; battery chargers and mobile-phone headsets.
Peasant girls try to lure customers inside their small shops where they have a collection of a dozen mobile phones. Those made by L.M. Ericsson, Nokia Oy and Motorola Inc. attract the most customers, but units made by Alcatel, Panasonic, Sony Corp. and Mitsubishi also are available. The latest models, such as the Nokia 6110, are readily available before the official operators put them on sale.
Competition is fierce, and what you pay in the end depends on your bargaining skills. Prices drop regularly, and the network-connection fee also is sometimes discounted, as operators China Telecom, affiliated with the Ministry of Telecommunications; and Unicom, supported by rival ministries such as Electronics and Railways, wage a fierce battle to win eager consumers.
At the official stores, China Telecom offers a choice of Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) handsets between US$570 and US$900 dollars, including the network connection fee of US$210 and a subscriber identity module (SIM) card.
Prices are fixed, no haggling here, and service has become quite efficient for a state-owned shop. You choose your handset, fill out a form, pay up, get your phone and you are out the door calling within half an hour.
Chairman Mao’s call to “serve the people” is being adapted to “serve the customer.” Amid the closure of state-owned factories and shops, the salespeople know they have to be nice to their customers or they will end up losing their “iron rice bowl” of guaranteed salary, medical expenses, pension and housing.
Service at the official stores always will be less colorful than at Xizhimen, where the peasant girls try to outbid each other, offering discounts.
“Come on in, we’ll give you a discount of 1,000 yuan,” one of them shouts. That amounts to US$120 dollars on a purchase of around US$800 dollars. Business is brisk at all times, with wads of 10,000 yuan changing hands continuously. No credit cards accepted here. Cars inch forward painstakingly in the narrow streets, more often than not forcing traffic to a complete standstill.
Buyers better take care, however, because not all phones are genuine. Fake products have appeared on the market, leaving the caller suspended in the middle of a conversation or even not able to establish a connection at all. Batteries run out very quickly.
If you ask the peasant salesgirls whether what they sell is the real stuff, they will answer you-with a really honest face-that they have never even heard of fake phones.
Nevertheless, the official China Central Television broadcast a story a few months ago, interviewing people who had been cheated. Most people still use analog phones and are advised to be picky when choosing a repair shop. Some unscrupulous repairmen sell mobile phone numbers to the highest bidder. At the end of the month, unsuspecting customers face sky-high phone bills.
Advertisements for mobile phones vie for space in the popular tabloids with those for computers and cars. Twenty years ago, newlyweds dreamed of a bicycle, a sewing machine and a watch. Today they want a car, a private apartment and a mobile phone. Once their only child starts going to school, a personal computer becomes an indispensable learning aid.
Since the mobile phone is the cheapest item on their dream list, that is what they will get first.
Even many government bureaucrats could not resist the temptation. Buying a mobile phone at the government’s expense became such a rage that China’s top leaders were forced to take drastic measures. Owners who had acquired their new toy by bending the rules were forced to sell it and deposit the proceeds back into state coffers.
As a result, the second-hand business is booming. Those who are still tempted to flaunt the prohibition of buying a mobile phone with public money face stern disciplinary action.
A similar clampdown on car purchases had a dramatic effect on China’s automobile industry. The latest statistics, however, do not show any drop in mobile-phone sales. It seems to be a tool many people decide they cannot do without, even if they have to fork over the money out of their own pocket.
