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Wiko, a French phone company, went from concept to company when the founders were shopping for parts in Shenzhen . Wiko had trouble raising money—few investors believed a new European phone company could succeed—so they took an investment from the Chinese manufacturer Tinno Mobile. Wiko is thus mostly Chinese, both owned and supplied by Tinno, but given its thin veneer of French design and marketing it looks like a local firm to the French. The resulting excitement over Wiko as a homegrown business helped them to become the second largest phone vendor in France . This preserves the pattern of “designed elsewhere, made in China,” but with the twist that ownership, not just sourcing and manufacturing, has now moved to China as well. (en) |
