The Red and the Black in the Flashing World

In the virtual world of the Internet, people's impression of it is mostly convenience, advancement, glamour, wealth, etc. In fact, it is also like the real world, with explicit and implicit rules running in parallel. There is Alipay , and there is SP; there are YY, 9158, and there are also borderline passionate videos; similarly, in the flashing industry, there are also various entanglements of explicit and implicit, red and black.

Flashing includes online and offline. Online flashing includes individual users, ROM makers, flashing tool developers, etc., such as the largest online flashing tool in China - Flash Master. Offline flashing includes software developers, parallel importers, flashing channels, etc., such as Dingkai. The flashing business has a long history, and has existed since the Symbian and Windows era, but the concept really exploded in the Android mobile phone era. With the rise of flashing, behind the seemingly simple flashing, multiple factors such as money, interests, and the market are intricately intertwined. Nanqidao interviewed many industry insiders and deeply analyzed the world of flashing.

Online flashing: How to become a battleground for giants

Flashing the system means replacing the system of mobile phones and other terminal devices with new ones through flashing software. The system software package is provided by ROM (mobile system firmware) developers or original manufacturers, and the typical representative is Xiaomi MIUI. Simply put, it is to reinstall the mobile phone system, similar to reinstalling the Windows system in the PC era. Flashing the system can make the functions of the mobile phone more complete and the user has greater autonomy.

The concept of flashing has existed since the emergence of various mobile devices, such as Nokia's Symbian era, Windows Mobile phones, iPhone's iOS, and BlackBerry phones, all of which have their own system firmware and can be flashed, but it was not until the emergence of open source Android phones that this concept became popular. Due to the open nature of the Android system and the uneven level of domestic mobile phone manufacturers, online flashing software has become a rigid demand for Android users.

Due to the mechanism of the Android system itself, after a period of use, the system will accumulate a lot of fragments and occupy a lot of memory. At the same time, Android phones are multi-tasking, and users can run multiple software at the same time, and each software can reside or run in the background. Some of these software occupy memory, and some occupy other space, so it will cause many problems such as sluggishness or even freezing. In contrast, the problems of iOS or other mobile operating systems are not so serious. Android phone users must clean up their phones regularly, especially as the performance and parameters of hardware are getting higher and higher, and the software developed by third-party manufacturers is taking up more and more memory. Any software such as Weibo, WeChat or QQ may take up tens of megabytes or even hundreds of megabytes of memory, which will cause the phone to get stuck more and more. In this case, many users will have to use software such as Flash Master to flash the phone and reinstall the system.

The uneven level of domestic mobile phone manufacturers is also one of the important reasons why users have to flash their phones. Google Android is an open source system that can be used by every mobile phone manufacturer. After each manufacturer gets the source code from Google, it will make some technical modifications based on the source code according to its own needs. However, due to the general lack of accumulation of technical strength of the manufacturers, it is far from the level of Google's native system, resulting in poor performance and even numerous loopholes. Many mobile phone systems are quite rough, and often have many system problems such as freezing, freezing or restarting. But it is worth mentioning that more and more manufacturers are aware of this problem. For example, some brand manufacturers such as Xiaomi, Hammer Mobile, Meizu, etc. will spend a lot of energy to optimize the system and solve it relatively well.

However, some small, high-imitation manufacturers do not have the technical ability or awareness to solve system problems. They rely more on solution providers to solve system problems. Due to excessive reliance on third-party solutions, most of them are relatively rough. In addition, some old manufacturers such as ZTE and Lenovo also have unsatisfactory systems. Based on the above reasons, most Android phones on the market, as long as they are not Google's native system, will have more or less problems when users use them. However, with the rise of domestic mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi that attach great importance to user experience, this area has become more and more perfect and gradually received attention from manufacturers, but most of them still need further optimization. Most users have no idea where to start when encountering such problems, and have to choose to flash the machine in a simple, rough and fast way to solve them.

When users are preparing to flash their phones, in addition to downloading flashing software tools, it is more important to choose a ROM (mobile phone system package) that suits their phone model. This has also become a rigid demand, which has triggered a corresponding boom in the development of folk ROMs. Many companies, individuals or team developers have seen business opportunities and developed many ROM packages based on Android, which are similar to folk systems such as Tomato Garden and Rain Forest Woodwind in the PC era. Currently, well-known ROMs include Xiaomi MIUI, Hammer ROM, LeWa, etc. Developers have produced a large number of flashing packages so that each model can be adapted to the appropriate ROM. For example, when Hammer ROM was first released, it was aimed at Samsung's star model S3. If S3 users want to experience Hammer ROM, they must flash the phone. But also because of the uneven level of developers, the ROMs developed are also good and bad. If you flash a defective ROM or a ROM you don't like, flashing the phone twice or even three times becomes a must.

Based on the above situation, the online flashing industry began to flourish. At the same time, because it can control the entire mobile phone system, it was once called the next entrance to the mobile Internet. It soon became a new camp for BAT to seize. Technology and capital gradually concentrated on online flashing. Giants such as Tencent, Baidu, 360, and Alibaba have entered. So far, domestic brands that provide online flashing software services include Flash Master, Flash Wizard, Zhuo Master, Sweet Pepper, Deepin, Qitu, etc. There are about 12 similar companies operating independent products. Previously, some small companies in Shenzhen, such as Shenxunhe, also wanted to participate in a share of the pie, but eventually failed due to technical barriers and other issues.

Offline flashing: huge profits behind the scenes

At 8pm on March 15, 2014, CCTV's 3.15 Gala exposed a "XX magic tool" developed by a subsidiary of a listed company, which can "fully automatically install software intelligently" and is a "tool for pre-installing and promoting high-end software on smart handheld terminals." The company is suspected of pre-installing malicious software into mobile phones. These programs are not only hidden, but also cannot be deleted. The huge offline flashing channels that have been lurking underwater have surfaced.

The characteristics of online flashing are: user initiative, individual behavior, more of an enthusiast or experience, and little correlation with profit. In sharp contrast, the characteristic of offline flashing is corporate operation, with only one purpose: money. The huge profits drive many companies to enter this industry, such as Dingkai and Cool Music mentioned on March 15. How do they operate specifically?

The earliest offline flashing was parallel import flashing. A large number of parallel import mobile phones entered China through various channels and were mainly distributed through Shenzhen Huaqiangbei. For well-known reasons, parallel imports are much cheaper than official products, so they are very popular with users and have a large sales volume. After foreign mobile phones are brought to China, due to system or language problems, many of them need to be processed by Chinese translation before they can enter the sales channel. This requires the top distributors to flash the phones.

At this time, many software developers saw the business opportunity and took the initiative to find sellers, asking them to pay to flash their software into the new system so that users could not uninstall it freely. The unit price ranged from a few cents to a few yuan. Why not for sellers? They could make money by selling mobile phones and flashing software. For the sake of profit, they would put all kinds of software into the system, even including bad software such as malicious deductions.

With the rise of domestic mobile phones in the past two years, such as Huawei, ZTE, Xiaomi and other brand manufacturers, the quality and price of domestic mobile phones are getting closer and closer to parallel imports, or even cheaper than parallel imports. Although the parallel import flashing market still exists, it has shrunk greatly, and the shipment volume is less than 10% of the peak period. Will the flashing dealers sit and wait for death? No! Domestic mobile phones also need them to sell, and at this time new offline flashing channels began to emerge, and various offline sales channels became the new and main camp of flashing dealers. From national agents, provincial agents, municipal agents, and county agents, almost every time a mobile phone is handled, it will be flashed once. Even mobile phones purchased on many e-commerce websites, such as Gome, Suning and other large channels are usually not immune.

Some of them completely re-flash the ROM, some just unlock the system and insert a few self-promoted software, then lock it, and some install it directly. Users cannot uninstall the first two methods freely, but users can uninstall the third method by themselves. Although manufacturers have various constraints in the contracts with channel agents, they are unable to implement them. Flashing the machine layer by layer has become an unspoken industry rule. In addition to the machines sold on the official website of the mobile phone manufacturer, the probability of being flashed by all channels and agents is about 50-60%, or even higher. Although Xiaomi mobile phones claim to have no agents, the sales volume of scalpers is estimated to exceed the official online direct sales volume. Once in the hands of scalpers, the probability of not being flashed is extremely low. With the rise of the offline flashing industry, surrounding industries can also develop, such as the invention of flashing boxes. As long as the seller has such a box, he can connect more than a dozen mobile phones at a time and flash the machine at one time, which greatly improves efficiency and saves costs.

The only reason why offline flashing has become a huge industry is: profit. Huge profits have prompted various forces to enter this industry. In the era of mobile Internet, the cost of acquiring users for APP developers is getting higher and higher, and channels are king. Due to reasons such as the inability to uninstall, the quality of users of pre-installed software on mobile phones is much higher than that of actively downloaded software.

Under the premise that APP promotion channels are relatively limited, industry monopoly has further intensified competition. The most traditional APP stores are increasingly concentrated in the hands of giants, and BAT360 basically monopolizes the domestic APP store market. Developers have less and less say in front of giants. For example, the promotion quotation of 91 Assistant on the market used to be 1.5 yuan per APP activation, but now it has become 1.5 yuan or even higher per download, and the number of downloads is determined by 91, and developers basically have no say. In this case, developers can only look for other cheap channels, such as offline flashing.

As domestic competition intensifies, both mobile phone manufacturers and software developers are paying more and more attention to the overseas market. Most developers are both excited and afraid of the overseas market. The market is large enough, but they know nothing about it. There are very few apps like Faceu that have successfully topped the rankings in multiple countries. Installing it on overseas mobile phones is undoubtedly one of the most convenient channels to enter the overseas market.

But the price of flashing promotion is getting higher and higher. In the past, it cost less than one yuan to pre-install a software, but now it ranges from 1 to 3 yuan. In the past, it cost about 10 yuan to package the whole mobile phone, but now it has increased several times to 20 to 30 yuan. The large offline channels can flash 2 to 3 million mobile phones a month, and the profit of one machine is about 30 yuan. They can make 60 million yuan a month just by flashing.

In the face of huge profits, some channels even install various software that secretly deducts phone charges and virus software into the system. As the critic Dunninger said in Capital: once there is a proper profit, capital will become very bold. 50% will lead to active risk-taking; 100% will make people disregard all laws;

Although this market is full of cash and profits are within reach, the capital of giants such as BAT has remained quite restrained, and few have directly invested in offline flashing. Because the legal risks in this gray area are too great, and the imaginable space is limited, and it is more about short-term huge profits, the giants that have been listed as public companies are very cautious about this. There is no connection in capital, but this does not mean that the giants have no connection with this industry, and even some employees are involved in the gray transactions in the chain.

Although the giants did not invest directly, it did not prevent them from spending directly. As one of the main promotion channels for mobile Internet, flashing implants are indispensable to them. In order to achieve the user KPI every year, any effective method will be used by the giants, including flashing. Therefore, hundreds of millions of huge funds will flow into the flashing market every year. Therefore, special intermediary companies have emerged to coordinate and connect software manufacturers and flashing vendors. In this process, core employees who hold the decision-making power of budget and delivery channels naturally become the key.

As a result, various related transactions emerged, such as internal personnel and intermediary companies jointly manipulating the entire event (or setting up a third-party company themselves), getting 3 yuan per package from the company, and 2.5 yuan or even lower for the downstream, and deducting part of the background data during settlement, leaving a huge profit margin in the middle. In this process, the profits obtained range from millions to tens of millions or even more. There were rumors that a company executive made millions of profits a month, but it is impossible to verify whether it is true or not. Since one of the assessment indicators is the activation volume, after flashing the machine, a group of people are organized to click and activate all the software. This leads to the current situation where a large number of software are activated on the market, but the activity is very low. Remember a giant company claiming to have more than a dozen software with hundreds of millions of users?

Deep differentiation: new trends in the online and offline flashing industry

With the development of the flashing market, so far, whether it is online or offline flashing, some new development trends and movements have emerged in the market. Online flashing has always been regarded as the next entrance to the mobile Internet and a rigid demand of users, but with the development of the industry, the demand for flashing is not as strong as before.

Online flashing started in 2011, with a market of about 10 million users. In 2012, it is expected to reach 50-60 million. In 2013, the Android phone market exploded, climbing to about 100 million. In 2014, it seems that the market will remain the same as last year. However, with the continuous improvement of the overall quality of mobile phone hardware and mobile phone systems, whether it is Xiaomi or Huawei Coolpad, especially after Android 4.0, the system operation experience of mobile phones has been much optimized. Before 2.3, it was difficult for users to use the system without flashing, but after 4.0, the problem is not so serious. According to the statistics of Flashing Master, the user coverage rate of 4.0 and above is now nearly 90%, and 4.2 to 4.4 has accounted for more than 60%. The mobile phone system shipped from the factory is generally 4.4. As time goes on, flashing may maintain a market size of about 4 to 50 million users per year.

At the same time, the profit model is limited in the field of online flashing. Take Flash Master as an example. With tens of millions of users, the profit comes from limited methods such as ROM package promotion and advertising, which basically achieves profitability and healthy operation, but other small companies may not be so lucky. A few companies with a keen sense of smell have made early arrangements. For example, Flash Master, based on the original technical accumulation, analyzed that users could not uninstall the system's built-in software, and at the same time, it was difficult for novice users to flash the machine, and subsequently launched ROOT Master. Users do not need to flash the machine, but can directly uninstall various useless software that comes with the original system. Solve the user's pain points. 360 also saw this business opportunity and began to vigorously promote its own ROOT software. Zhuo Master, invested by Baidu, retreated to the second camp and transformed into other businesses. Due to the technical threshold and insufficient accumulation, many small flashing companies or teams can no longer support it, and have closed down or transformed. In this area, the situation of the winner taking all of the entire industry chain will be staged.

In terms of offline flashing, as government departments gradually began to pay attention to mobile phone information security, increased legislation and crackdown efforts, especially after March 15, offline flashing had a greater impact. At the same time, with the rise of Xiaomi's sales model, its own official website channel became one of the main channels. This model was borrowed by Huawei, Hammer Technology, and gradually taken seriously by mobile phone manufacturers. The rise of its own channels greatly reduced the possibility of multiple flashing. However, due to the huge profit drive, it is obviously impossible to fully formalize in a short period of time. There is no doubt that with the overall development of the mobile phone industry and the soundness of the ecology, the gray space will become smaller and smaller. Truly solving user problems and creating valuable products and a healthy ecology will be the only way to achieve sustainable development. The best example is the SP industry a few years ago. The heyday is still in front of us. We saw him build a high building and then saw his building collapse. Many people who enjoyed the huge profits of SP are still in prison.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.