This is normally the moment that triggers cold sweats among manufacturers. But in the offices of the French Crosscall, there is a certain pleasure in using smartphone torture machines. Here, one of them throws the mobiles from two meters high onto a cold concrete slab. Over there, a robotic arm rubs a piece of jeans on the back of the device for hours with the stubbornness of an annoying child. Further on, a box allows you to immerse the phone in polar cold or desert heat. And a basin to immerse it “in a liter of diesel”, points out an engineer in the laboratory located in Aix-en-Provence. Why so much hate? Because they can take it. Robustness is the main selling point of Crosscall mobiles, not always very aesthetic, with aggressive lines and sharp angles. A unique positioning on the market.
Cyril Vidal, his boss, had the idea in 2009, at a time when the first iPhones were shining as much for their incredible capabilities as for their fragility. Repair shops and designers of protective cases were springing up everywhere. He decided instead to tackle the root of the problem: the device itself. His first models – floating, or simply resistant – allowed him to carve out a reputation among sportsmen, amateurs or professionals, extreme sportsmen, from skippers to freeriders (who practice a sport outside of any formal framework, for example off-piste skiing). For them, the phone is above all an emergency accessory. Particular attention is therefore given to ease of use and the battery. Solid smartphones necessarily neglect other aspects. In addition to aesthetics, on the Internet, testers criticize its camera. Embedded generative AIs, such as those on Apple iPhones – the 16th edition of which has just been presented – are not, a priori, for tomorrow.
“I am a mobile phone craftsman,” confides Cyril Vidal, who now adapts his solid phones – called Core, Stellar or Action – to the professional world. This is where Crosscall now pockets three-quarters of its turnover – 114 million euros in the last fiscal year (+ 40% since 2019) – thanks to contracts with SNCF and Leroy Merlin, for both blue- and white-collar workers. Devices “guaranteed for five years”, a rarity in the industry, Cyril Vidal insists, out of pride rather than real necessity. The SNCF has in fact counted only “17 screen breakages in four years”, out of 25,000 products, he boasts.
Crosscall headquarters in Aix-en-Provence.
© / DR
Smartphone customization, on the other hand, involves software, for example software layers that reinforce security or special applications dedicated to e-commerce. But also accessories, scanners, super charging stations, vehicle supports. An advertisement for the iPhone 3G, one of the very first, has remained famous for its phrase: “There’s an application for that”. Crosscall would say, for each profession: “There’s a phone and an accessory for that”.
Government Services
But the other axis, still quite new, and perhaps the most promising, is that of “BtoG”. Selling to governments. Crosscall already equips the French police with 300,000 devices, which probably makes it “one of the largest telephone contracts in Europe”, the company claims. The Dubai and Finnish police forces – hence the extreme tests – have also been convinced. Crosscall is now focusing its forces on critical communication. Its mobiles are equipped with the very latest radio technologies used by law enforcement and emergency services. Each country is currently developing its own system. At the beginning of September, Crosscall announced that it had been selected to test the “Sirdee” emergency network in Spain. The key may be the provision of several tens or even hundreds of thousands of additional units. And a sort of circuit in the opposite direction: having the good graces of officials will, according to them, make it attractive to local companies, and why not in fine adventurous consumers.
Thanks to this international development, country by country, Crosscall hopes to reach 300 million euros in turnover within five years. And boost its number of devices sold: 4.5 million units to date since its creation, or 2% of Apple’s sales in a single year, currently. This vast project has been entrusted to Nicolas Zibell. A strategist who learned the ropes at Alcatel. Europe is his first objective. Cyril Vidal whispers in his ear that he dreams, in the long term, of the United States. For that, it will take cash. The boss is ready to bring in a new majority investor. Technically, it’s selling. But the entrepreneur intends to keep the reins of the company with 200 employees, including 140 in Aix. Because the Marseille native has one ultimate dream: to relocate to France a production, a “know-how” currently in China, “like everyone else”. Here, the pitfall could be having to inflate its costs, therefore its prices. Competing with brands like Caterpillar, but also and above all the Korean giant Samsung, which offers offers to professionals, Crosscall is already “expensive”, and recognizes it. But the bet on “sustainability”, on “sovereignty” in the flashy and fragile world of smartphones remains a “beautiful story”, underlines Cyril Vidal. The only one he wants to tell.
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