The white BMW Mr. Liu drives around this humid coastal¹ city in southern China may be real, but the spiffy little black smart phone he carries with him is definitely fake.

Phone clones: China's 'bandit' mobile phone market is huge.

行驶在中国东南沿海城市的刘先生所开的白色宝马车可能是真的，但他手中的精美小巧的黑色手机却是真真正正的赝品。

手机：中国的“山寨”手机市场巨大.

"But it has Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, FM radio, a digital video camera, hundreds of games, even a voice recorder," says Liu. "And I invested over $500,000 to make it."

“但这款手机具有蓝牙、GPS、无线网卡、调频收音机、数码摄像头、数百个游戏和录音功能。”刘先生说。“我为此投资了50万美元。”

Liu, a 31-year-old who studied fine arts in college and designs cigarette cartons on the side, is one of countless² thousands here who've earned big bucks³ manufacturing "gray market" mobile phones, millions of which are not only being sold across China but also exported to dozens of developing countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and other regions around the world.

"They are everywhere," said Karl Weaver⁴, a wireless⁵ evangelist and mobile device specialist for the Chinese handset ecosystem⁶. "You can find them in major department stores and malls, in back alleys⁷ and in underground markets. Everyone is selling them. It is really very entrepreneurial."

刘先生，31岁，在大学学习美术专业，兼职设计香烟盒。他是数以千计个以生产“灰色市场”手机发家的人之一。这类手机，不仅畅销中中国各地，也出口到数十个非洲、拉丁美洲、中东和其他地区的发展中国家。

Karl Weaver，一个传教士兼中国手机市场专家。他说：“到处都是山寨货。你可以在大的商场或购物中心买到，可以在小巷里买到，也可以在地下市场买到。每个人都在卖山寨机，这真是非常企业化了！”

In 2008, an estimated 150 million, or 20 percent, of the 750 million handsets produced in China were either counterfeit⁸ or off-brand phones, according to CCID Consulting, a market research firm based in Beijing. Of those, over 51 million were sold in China while the remainder were sent to foreign markets.

Known here as "shanzhai ji", or bandit phones, China's gray market handset industry was virtually non-existent just a few years ago. While a handful of illegal companies produced black market mobiles, they often were of poor quality mainly because the technology needed to make them was hard to come by and even harder to master.

This all changed in 2005 when Mediatek, a microchip design company from Taiwan, developed what experts call a turnkey solution -- a platform that integrated many complex mobile phone software systems onto a single chip. This made it much easier and cheaper to build handsets and churn out new models at astounding⁹ speeds.

"[Mediatek] basically commoditized the entire market," said Jonathan Li, founder¹⁰ of Shanghai-based technology design studio Asentio Design. "They made it really simple and really cheap to make your own phone. Almost anybody could do it."

The shanzhai business got another boost a couple of years later when the Chinese government relaxed regulations limiting the number of companies that could manufacture handsets, lowering the entry barrier for hundreds of entrepreneurs eager to have a piece of the world's biggest mobile phone market.

"It is so easy to do because this whole ecosystem is in China," said Weaver. "It isn't so complex for a guy to figure out by watching how the global supply chain works in the mobile handset space to do his own thing."

据一家北京的市场调研公司CCID调查，2008年，在中国生产的7亿5千万手机中，有一亿五千万或者说20%的手机不是伪造的就是没有注册商标的。该调查还显示，在这些手机中，超过5100万的手机在中国销售，而其他的都远销国外。

“山寨机”的生产在前几年还处于萌芽状态。那时，只有几个公司非法生产这种手机。这类手机通常质量低劣。因为制造手机的技术很难获取，更不用说掌握了。

这一切在2005年有了翻天腹地的变化。台湾的一家叫做MEDIATEK的微电子设计公司发明了一种专家称为“全程解决方案”的平台，这种平台把很多复杂的手机软件系统集成到一张电路板上。这样，制造手机就变得容易而且成本更低，而且以惊人的速度不断推出新款型。

两年后中国政府放松了对于生产手机的工厂的数量管制后，山寨机产业突飞猛进。降低的门槛让无数创业者对于中国，这个世界最大手机市场跃跃欲试。

Small operations, big rewards

By 2008, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 shanzhai businesses had emerged, many with fewer than a dozen employees operating in offices sometimes comprised only of a back bedroom in a small apartment or basement of a private home. Some blatantly¹¹ copy major brands, producing knock-offs with slight twists in their names, others come up with special makes of their own.

Either way, the shanzhai phenomenon has not gone unnoticed by legitimate¹² handset manufacturers. The gray market phones, which typically sell for around $100, have already driven down the prices of brand name mobiles and are beginning to take away their market share, too.

"You cannot compete with them. You can't," said an employee of Chinese telecom equipment maker¹³ Huawei Technologies who spoke¹⁴ on the condition of anonymity¹⁵. "It is almost impossible to make a profit [from handsets] now because of shanzhai."

Some manufacturers, like Nokia, say they are working with the Chinese government to crackdown on the counterfeiting¹⁶ companies as well as raise awareness¹⁷ about the potential dangers of the fake phones, some of which have had exploding batteries or expose consumers to abnormal amounts of radiation.

"We have a very good working relationship with the Chinese authorities," Lucy Nichols, Nokia's global director of intellectual property rights and brand protection, told CNN. "They recognize this is an issue that needs to be addressed."

Aside from also trying to highlight the risks of using shanzhai mobile phones, Beijing has yet to take serious steps to curtail¹⁸ the proliferation of the underground mobile phone industry.

Some experts say this is because the companies involved in it blur¹⁹ the boundaries between legitimate and illegitimate enterprises. Even though they may still partake in shady practices, such as evading²⁰ taxes, avoiding safety checks and using pirated software, a growing number of bandit phone firms are becoming licensed²¹, creating brands with nearly as much recognition as established domestic ones.

And whether licensed or not, nearly all the grey market firms place orders with mobile phone component²² companies that work with major manufacturers as well, which keeps factories up and running especially as handset sales plummet²³ amidst the economic downturn.

小行动，大回报

截止到2008年，约有3000-4000家的山山寨企业先后建立。这些企业中很多仅仅雇佣了10多名在办公室工作的人员，有的时候工作地点甚至仅仅是一个小公寓或者住家的卧室。有的堂而皇之的抄袭著名品牌，仅仅在名字上做一点改动，而其他的，制造出自己的品牌。

无论怎样，那些著名品牌的手机生产商都认为山寨现象是非法的。这些售价通常在100美元左右的山寨手机，不仅极大的降低了品牌手机的价格，而且也开始抢占他们的市场份额。

“你竞争不过他们的，根本不能！”一个不愿意透露姓名的中国华为电信技术公司的雇员说，“有了山寨，我们根本不能靠做手机赚钱。”

一些公司，例如诺基亚，开始同中国政府合作，来取缔伪造厂商，同时也开始注重伪造手机的潜在危险。山寨手机会使用户暴露在超量的辐射中，甚至有电池爆炸的危险。

“我们同中国当局有着良好的合作关系”诺基亚知识产权和品牌保护全球专员Lucy Nichols告诉CNN说，“中国政府也认为这是一个需要注意的问题。”

除了强调山寨手机潜在的危险外，北京也在采取切实的措施来遏制地下手机产业的扩散。

一些专家指出这种现象是由于这些企业钻了法律的空子。虽然他们仍然在进行一些非法的操作，譬如逃税、回避安检、使用盗版软件，但是越来越多的山寨手机企业正在注册商标，正如国内那些已经获得认可的企业那样。

无论注册与否，几乎所有的山寨手机企业都向同时也与大的生产商有业务往来的手机零件制造厂定制产品，使得这些零件生产厂家在大的经济环境低迷手机销售量直线下降的情况下仍能正常运转。

Not just faking it

Many shanzhai companies have begun to move beyond mere²⁴ copying and into the realm of creativity. Some have been developed to suit the needs of the local market, with two slots for SIM cards for businesspeople traveling between Taiwan, Hong Kong and the mainland.

Some have gimmicky²⁵ appearances, like cigarettes boxes or watches, but others have special lights that can be used to identify fake money, large screens and keypads for the elderly or extra loud speakers for farmers who may not be able to hear their phones while working outside.

"This is an important way to cultivate grassroots innovation," said Jack²⁶ Linchuan Liu, a communications professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong who has studied the shanzhai industry.

"There is a lot of raw power in the development of these bandit phones that could be channeled into normal, productive creativity from the bottom up."

Fierce competition among bandit phone firms continues to drive prices down while prices for more advanced technology continues to go up, causing many of the companies to close simply because they can't make the margins²⁷ they did a couple of years ago.

Thousands of shanzhai companies have disappeared in recent months or have moved into new areas of opportunity, making shanzhai laptops and digital cameras.

Mr. Liu is now planning his exit strategy, too. He says he is not sure what he'll do next, but whatever it is, he hopes it will involve making lots of money. "I am trying to realize a big dream," he said. "But every success

不仅仅是仿造

许多山寨厂商打破了抄袭的局面，开始进行自主研发。有点甚至开发出适合本土市场的产品，比如，为了方便那些经常来往于台湾、香港和大陆的商务人员而开发的双网双待手机；有的有着精美的外壳，比如，像香烟盒或者手表；有的则有突出的亮点，比如识别假币，或者是为老年人需要而设计的大屏幕或大键盘，或者是为了以防室外工作者听不到而设计的超大铃声。

“这也是刺激草根经济的重要手段”香港中文大学的研究山寨工业的通信学教授刘林川说，“在山寨市场中，有很多的法律约束，可以把山寨手机从地下变成正规的，多产的创造产业。”

山寨公司之间激烈的竞争仍然在继续，价格仍然在降低，与此同时高端手机的价格仍然在升高。很多山寨公司仅仅因为不能同两年前那样获得利润而倒闭。

近几个月来，数千家山寨公司已经消失或者转型生产山寨笔记本电脑或者数码相机。

刘先生也正在盘算退路。他说他也不确定他下一步要干什么，不过无论做什么，他都希望可以赚大钱。“这个梦想较难实现”他说，“不过世上无难事，只怕有心人。”