Preamble:
Hytera, a leading enterprise in mainland walkie-talkies going overseas, was banned from global sales by the United States, and even domestic platforms have removed related products?
What did Hytera do to be so heavily sanctioned by the United States, and what should Hytera do in the face of such a predicament?
A blanket ban
On April 7, mainland walkie-talkie giant Hytera announced on its official website that due to sanctions from the United States, the company's global walkie-talkie product business was temporarily suspended, and it was required to pay a fine of $1 million per day.
On April 8, in the face of sudden changes, Chen Qingzhou, the company's shareholder and actual controller, came forward to promise not to reduce the company's shares within 6 months.
However, the stock opening data on April 9 showed that Hytera plummeted 9.91% at the opening, and it seems that the reassurance of the company's shareholders "never run away" has not had any effect.
Hytera is a big deal this time.
We found that the "sanctions" of the United States this time are actually "decrees" from the courts.
Hytera's walkie-talkie products can no longer be searched on major e-commerce platforms, which also reflects that Hytera has "pleaded guilty" in the face of the US judgment?
As a domestic enterprise, it actually wants to "plead guilty" to the US court, what has Hytera done, and how can it save itself?
Hytera suffered a sudden change
Founded in Shenzhen in 1993 and growing rapidly, Hytera was successfully listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in May 2011, and has since expanded its business tentacles around the world.
According to QYResearch statistics, as of 2022, Hytera has sold 1.499 million walkie-talkies at a unit price of US$161, ranking among the top three in the world in terms of market share.
But just when the situation was good, a "subpoena" from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois gave Hytera a blow to the head.
According to the original text of the decree, Hytera issued a contempt order for withdrawal and withdrawal of the lawsuit it filed with the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court in June 2022 for failing to comply with the court's request.
The sanction came into effect on April 2, and as a result, Hytera not only paid a fine of $1 million per day, but also took walkie-talkie products offline in all channels around the world.
Why did Hytera file a lawsuit, who did it sue against, and why did it commit contempt of court in the United States?
The feud between Hytera and Motorola
Hytera's sanctions can be traced back to 2017.
At that time, Motorola Solutions Inc. and Motorola Solutions Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. (hereinafter referred to as "Motorola") sued Hytera's two wholly-owned subsidiaries, Hytera America Inc. and Hytera America Inc. (hereinafter referred to as Hytera), for trade secret infringement.
The reason for this lawsuit is that Hytera poached people from Motorola, and the person who poached was Hytera who "defected" with a large number of classified documents downloaded while working at Motorola.
Motorola asserted that the documents involved infringement of 21 trade secrets and 4 copyrights, and demanded immediate compensation from Hytera.
Hytera faced a court summons, and while preparing to defend itself, it also sued Motorola backhanded.
On November 14, 2017, Hytera sued Motorola's Chinese subsidiary for monopolistic behavior for abuse of market dominance and demanded damages.
The scene was awkward and symmetrical, with the U.S. company suing the Chinese company's subsidiary in the U.S., and the Chinese company suing the U.S. company's subsidiary in China.
There was a feeling that the hostages on both sides were "beaten" in the barracks opposite.
This drama of suing each other finally came to an end in 2020, when the United States first sentenced Hytera to be "guilty":
On March 5, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of the United States ruled in the first instance that Hytera infringed a number of Motorola's trade secrets and copyrights, and ordered a total of US$764 million in damages and punitive damages.
In the same year, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court rejected Hytera's claim for commercial monopoly and abuse of power due to insufficient grounds.
Hytera, which is "not pleasing inside and out", is not reconciled, and while filing a complaint against the United States, it continues to sue Motorola in Guangzhou and Shenzhen on the mainland......
Motorola is also continuing to collect evidence of Hytera's "theft of secrets", and the battle between the two sides is gradually heating up.
Hytera raised a problem with the amount of compensation and requested a reduction in the amount of compensation, which passed.
Motorola filed for additional damages, which was dismissed, but supported the claim for interest.
Shortly after Hytera appealed to a higher U.S. court, the U.S. Department of Justice also joined the fray and filed a criminal case against Hytera for "stealing secrets".
Due to the intervention of the U.S. judiciary, there is a great tendency to "pull the bias", resulting in Hytera being very passive in the case. Not only was he convicted of paying additional trade secrets and tortious taxes, but he also sought to drop a lawsuit filed in China for contempt of court proceedings.
As a result, the "order" mentioned at the beginning of the article appeared: loss of money, fines, and dismissal of the lawsuit;
Until the evacuation of the lawsuit is completed, the sale of walkie-talkies worldwide is prohibited.
In the face of this combination of American justice and Motorola, Hytera was beaten not lightly, and under the roof of people, it had to bow its head.
So in the end, he could only "admit it" with hatred and actively withdraw the lawsuit......
At the same time, due to the "temporary takedown" statement on the official website, a number of domestic shareholders panicked and ran away, even though the company's major shareholders came forward to emphasize that they could overcome it and would not run away.
But the decline in stock prices seems to be unstoppable.
The house leak happened to rain overnight, and today's Hytera can be described as internal and external troubles;
And many netizens who support national enterprises watched state-owned enterprises being so excluded and suppressed in the United States that they finally "confessed".
At the same time, we can't help but wonder: Do we have to be angry? Can't we just withdraw from the United States?
Helpless Hytera
"It was also targeted by the United States, TikTok launched a counterattack, and Huawei directly picked its son to go home, why did Hytera have to admit it?"
Many hot-blooded netizens expressed resentment and incomprehension.
But for Hytera, although it is aggrieved, it is really helpless to admit cowardice.
This helplessness is, first of all, out of "reason".
Although shopping malls are like battlefields, and it is a routine operation for enterprises to poach people from each other, the person who poached "takes away" the core technology or patent of the original enterprise, then he must bear the risk of the defendant.
It is not difficult to see from Hytera's appeal that it has been emphasizing two points:
- I shouldn't have lost so much
- You're not clean, and you're going to have to compensate me
It can be said that Hytera has no argument for profiting from poaching, but is trying to minimize losses;
In addition, Chinese companies are in lawsuits with American companies in the United States, not to mention the loss of reason, even if they are justified, they may not be able to get rid of it.
The second helplessness is that Hytera is difficult to give up the huge overseas market.
From the perspective of sales area, Hytera's overseas sales account for more than 50%, and it is a state-owned enterprise that really earns foreign money, especially with the influence of the mainland's "One Belt, One Road" policy, Hytera has opened more than ten subsidiaries and offices in countries along the route, which can be said to do business all over the world.
But the more you do business overseas, the more you will be coerced by the United States, which can use its powerful economic and even political influence to interfere in your "business."
Even ASML, the world's top technology giant, has to "look at the face of the United States" to operate, not to mention the communication business, which has an already complex supply relationship.
The third helplessness is Hytera's dependence on the United States, especially Motorola.
If you want to compare the beginning and end of this lawsuit, I think it is a bit like Zhang Fei and Lu Bu bickering, Zhang Fei has always condemned Lu Bu at the moral level of "three family slaves", but has never questioned Lu Bu's strength as the world's first.
Hytera is similar, whether it is an appeal or a counter-accusation, it only accuses Motorola of being "domineering" and "greedy", but tries not to talk about Motorola's patented technology.
Because whether it is the two sides of the lawsuit or a neutral observer, everyone understands that Hytera relies on these technologies of Motorola at least temporarily, and Hytera, which has been in the United States for many years, is also difficult to cut off the supply chain that is easy to "mix" in the United States.
Combined with the above three points, it is reasonable for Hytera to withdraw the lawsuit and admit cowardice, remove the product from the shelves, and apologize for compensation.
"挣钱嘛,不寒碜。"
Although netizens are indignant in their support for Hytera and the United States to "just go to the end", it is absolutely undesirable for such a large company to act rashly.
We have to admit that the rules of the game in the market are always set by the "strong".
It's like letting Master Bullet Feili persuade Zhang Mazi, "Seventy percent is from other people, just these thirty percent, and it depends on Huang Shilang's face." ”
Obviously, in today's field of communications, the United States has maintained its status as a "strong man" and it is difficult to shake it for a while.
Long before the Hytera incident, mainland companies in the United States had also suffered from varying degrees of "nesting".
For example, ZTE was first fined $1.192 billion for "violating the U.S. export control system", ordered to fire four corporate executives, and punished 35 related employees.
Later, due to ZTE's "poor implementation" of the punishment, it was ordered by the U.S. Department of Commerce in 2018 to prohibit U.S. companies from providing sensitive products to ZTE, which directly led to ZTE's "suspension".
In the face of waves of "sanctions", ZTE was helpless to bear it for the development of the enterprise, and after many negotiations between the Ministry of Commerce of the two countries, the ban was finally lifted at the cost of ZTE's payment of 400 million deposits.
This is what some netizens said: Then how can Huawei be tough and go home directly by flipping the table?
We need more Huawei
Because Huawei is tough.
Compared with other companies sanctioned by the United States, Huawei has reached a more mature level in terms of its own economic strength and technological level.
As mentioned earlier, the "strong" set the rules of the game, and Huawei, as an emerging powerhouse, is not willing to look up to others with confidence.
To put it mildly, if you want to resist the hegemonic business model of the United States, you can't just have a temper, you have to have strength, and this strength includes the comprehensive strength of the brand, especially the core technology.
This also answers the previous two questions from the side:
Hytera admits that it is because the core technology is still in the hands of Motorola;
Huawei flipped the table because the core technology was in its own hands.
Although Huawei's development has also been affected to a certain extent in the face of chip sanctions, these can only slow us down, not choke our throat.
So, China needs more Huawei.
epilogue
Nowadays, with the rapid development of global science and technology and the rapid change of market pattern, domestic enterprises can only master their own core technology in order to avoid the constraints of outsiders to the greatest extent, so as to develop for a long time.
I also hope that China will have more and more Huawei to lead China's science and technology to break through the blockade step by step and scale new heights.
Resources
Entering Hytera: Overseas business has made great efforts, and the turning period of performance has reached ?—— CBN
ZTE was "blocked" by the United States: Is China's industry afraid?—— Economic Observer
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