Thunder (Xunlei), leading Chinese download manager, released a 798 yuan ($130.03) custom smartphone named 100+ Thunderbird together with BFB Mobile, a domestic smartphone brand operated by Ningbo Sanxing (SZ:601567) (report in Chinese).
Powered by Baidu’s Yunxuan5 ROM based on Android 4.1, the smartphone features 5-inch screen, Qualcomm 1.2GHz quad-core processor and comes in seven different colors. It also supports dual SIM cards two standby function for China Telecom’s VEDO and China Mobile’s GSM networks.
Buyers of this product will become Thunder members, a value-added service offering more than 40 kinds of features on Thunder products, such as offline download and high-speed download. Moreover, several apps developed by the company are preinstalled in the smartphone, including Mobile Thunder and Kankan.
Huang Fan, COO of Thunder, disclosed that the revenue from value-added services accounts for more than 60% of the total. The number of paid members now surpassed 4 million and it is expected to exceed 5 million by the end of this year.
It is a trend for traditional handset producers to cooperate with Internet companies and to capitalize on their marketing and sales channels, said an industry analyst. BFB Mobile has previously partnered with Baidu and Qihoo 360 to release custom smartphones.
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