Reborn: Billionaire in College

When the buffet was halfway through, many people stopped talking. The host on the small stage at the top announced loudly: "In ten seconds, the pre-sale of Orange Super 1 will officially start. We will report the sales volume in real time on the spot. Thank you everyone."

No one would question whether Chen Pingjiang's actions were risky. Wouldn't it be embarrassing if sales were not good?
Even a fool knows that at this price and configuration, Orange S1 is the best choice in the current market with few mobile phone brands and limited choices.

Chen Pingjiang also walked onto the small stage and said with a smile: "The 1 VIPs attending the conference don't have to worry about not being able to grab a phone. Everyone will get a commemorative S at the end of the conference."

"Mr. Chen, you are so generous!"

Everyone present was a person of status, and they didn’t care about the money for a mere mobile phone, but the meaning was different.

A government official approached Chen Pingjiang and offered to pay.

Unexpectedly, Chen Pingjiang waved his hand and said, "These are all commemorative edition S1s. Some are even engineering machines, which are for trial use. If you have any good suggestions after using them, you can also give us feedback."

After Chen Pingjiang said this, it was impossible to refuse.

The host was just halfway through the conversation when he said, "We just received a notification that 1 units of the Orange S43642 Founder Edition have been sold out in ten seconds, and units have been pre-sold in one minute."

Wow!
It worked!
There was warm applause in the meeting hall, and everyone looked at Chen Pingjiang with admiration.

Compared to the buffet venue, the popularity on the Internet was even higher.

The official Weibo account of Orange Mobile posted a message with a picture: "1 units in one minute, unprecedented!"

"I'm so fucked up. I spent so much time trying to order, but the card was stuck. When I got the card back, I couldn't buy it anymore."

"I didn't get stuck, but I still couldn't beat those beasts. Woohoo, my founding edition!"

"So whoever got it, do you dare to come out and take a walk?"

"My clock has a problem. When I refreshed the page, only the regular version S1 was available. It is said that the founder's version has been locked and I can pick it up after paying the money later."

"Looking for the founding edition at 1.5 times the price. If you have it, PM me. The price is negotiable. If you are sincere, come."

"I'm just showing off. Fortunately, I have accomplished my mission and got the founding edition."

"It's really amazing. I thought it would be popular, but I didn't expect it to be so popular. If we calculate based on the lowest price of 3266, these 43642 phones are worth 1.4 million!"

"So scary!"

…………

Since the beginning of pre-sale, pre-sale records have been broken continuously.

In 10 minutes, the pre-sale number reached 15 units.

In 30 minutes, the pre-sale number reached 32 units.

At 60 minutes, 51 units.

The official Weibo account of Orange Mobile was flooded with reports on the results of the battle, and the artist behind the scenes said that he was too late to draw the pictures.

After the buffet, Chen Pingjiang and a group of Orange Mobile executives hurried back to the headquarters for a meeting.

"Mr. Zhou, thank you for your hard work. Contact all suppliers as quickly as possible to prepare the stock. This time, we will renew the order for 500 million sets and try to lower the purchase price as much as possible. If we can't handle it, I will fly over to have a meeting tomorrow. Now, in less than two hours, the pre-sale sales have reached 70 units. I estimate that it will not be a problem to break 12 million by 100 o'clock in the evening. The shipment volume may reach 500 million units within a month."

Zhou Guangping nodded: "No problem, I will get everything done within three days, and contact the foundry to reserve production capacity."

Monthly sales of 500 million units are already a top-tier mobile phone. In history, not many mobile phones have been able to achieve monthly sales of 500 million units in China.

Mainly because I happened to be in the right time.

As ordinary mobile phones are transitioning to smart phones, a large number of users are faced with the need to replace their old phones.

At this time, Lin Bin, who had just finished a call, hurried into the conference room with a smile on his face: "The relevant persons in charge of the three major operators just called me and expressed their desire to purchase Orange S1 and sell it in their stores."

"Contract phone?"

Lin Bin nodded: "Yes, I see that they want to purchase at least two million units each."

Zhou Guangping looked a little sad: "Our production capacity cannot keep up. If we had known earlier, we should have stocked more goods."

Chen Pingjiang waved his hand and said, "Don't mention it after the fact. I'll leave the production capacity issue to you, Old Zhou."

Contract phones have a history in the domestic market. They were once all the rage, dominating most of the mobile phone market.

This exists independently of official channels and third-party channels.

Customized contract phone!

As long as you recharge a certain amount of money, choose a bundled phone package, and recharge on time every month, the phone will be given to you for free.

It is true that free things are the most expensive.

Since its launch, contract phones have quickly stood out from the competition thanks to their apparently lower prices than those in official flagship stores (after adding phone bills) and better after-sales guarantees than third-party channels.

China Mobile launched its contract phone business as early as 2002, and with this move, sales increased by one-third in the first fiscal year.

The emergence of contract phones not only raised the package fees all of a sudden, but also brought in a stable group of "loyal" customers. Consumers who have fallen into the trap will not be able to get out for two to three years.

Later, China Unicom and China Telecom both started to sell contract phones, and it was at this time that China Cool Union made a comeback.

At that time, ZTE, Huawei, Coolpad, and Lenovo occupied half of the market, right? The remaining half was Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, NEC, Panasonic, etc.

Mobile phone manufacturers are all-you-can-eat. For example, Lenovo has almost 70% of its sales volume being contract phones for operators. For this reason, it has even opened up a production line for contract phones. All mobile phone models ending with T are contract phones exclusively for operators.

The first iPhone in China, iPhone 4, was introduced to China by China Unicom.

What’s interesting is that contract phones are all castrated versions. The Orange S1 is fully network compatible, and the customized version for a carrier can only be bundled with the SIM card of that carrier.

Chen Pingjiang nodded and said, "There is no problem with cooperation, but we need to clarify the delivery time. I estimate that it will take at least one or two months before we have the production capacity to produce customized versions. And we need to specifically point out that the price we are selling at now is not profitable, and we cannot give up even a penny."

Chen Pingjiang still hopes to maintain good relations with the three major operators, and the closer the relationship, the better.

Otherwise, it will be very uncomfortable later. Let’s talk about WeChat, which will have a huge impact on the business of the three major operators.

Texting and voice intercoms are fine, but video and voice calls are like shitting in someone else's backyard.

The issue was finally resolved after repeated negotiations between the three major operators and WeChat.

In fact, it is no news that operators charge extra for communication software, not only in China but also abroad.

For example, in Germany, users have to pay every month to use WhatsApp. Even in Hong Kong, WeChat has reached a cooperation agreement with local operators, charging 8 Hong Kong dollars per month.

After sitting down, Lin Bin sighed, "I thought it would be popular, but I didn't think it would be this popular. Meizu M8 sold 10 units in two months after its launch. At that time, people in the industry cried wolf. Now we sold 10 units in just a few minutes. It feels great, haha."

"In 2009, the total sales volume of smartphones in China reached 2164 million. To be conservative, we have received orders for nearly one million units. If we include the remaining users and contract phones, it seems that shipping million units this year is nothing."

After coughing, Chen Pingjiang said, "We have won the first battle. Thank you for your hard work. Unfortunately, we cannot rest yet. Lao Zhou's task is to contact suppliers and foundries to ensure production capacity."

"Lao Lin will continue to lead the team to develop the Orange S2, and do a good job in site selection to open offline direct-sale stores in first- and second-tier cities in China. Relying solely on online sales can reduce costs, but there are also disadvantages. If other brands have offline stores, users can experience the real machine, but we don't, sales will also be affected. At the same time, offline experience stores can also drive sales of other peripheral supporting products."

"Mr. Xiao also needs to work harder and focus on the construction of chip and mobile phone factories."

Xiao Hongbin nodded: "The mobile phone factory building has been completed, two production lines have been installed, and they are currently recruiting workers for trial operation. I estimate that they will be able to officially start work in the summer. The chip design company is still in the preparation stage, mainly because it is difficult to recruit people."

Chen Pingjiang sighed: "It's not your fault. Every company is short of chip design talent. They can either poach or recruit them to speed up the process. If it doesn't work, SMIC can try poaching them."

Chen Pingjiang still has time. He cannot become fat in one breath. Mobile phones are easy to make, but chips are hard to come by.

A tiny chip contains complicated manufacturing processes and procedures.

Chip design must avoid patents, wafer factories, packaging factories, lithography machines...

Just counting them carefully can make your scalp tingle.

…………

The next day, news about Orange S1 dominated the screen, and many discordant voices appeared.

Samsung's president in China said directly to the media: "Orange Mobile is simply engaging in malicious competition. According to our estimates, it makes almost no money. I understand that they want to seize the market, but you can't play it this way. It hurts others and does not benefit yourself."

Chen Pingjiang didn't even need to take any action, as these remarks were immediately refuted by consumers.

"If you can't beat them, then you can criticize them behind their backs. If you have the guts, you can lower your prices!"

"That's right. If you really lower the price, I'll still treat you as a man."

"I was planning to change to a Samsung phone recently, but after seeing the launch yesterday, I decided to wait a month or so. It has better configuration, lower price, more complete ecosystem, and most importantly, it is made in China. Can you bear it?"

The major manufacturers had nothing else to do at work today except holding meetings to discuss countermeasures.

Tencent is also nervous.

Brother Xiao Ma knocked on the table and said, "Yesterday I asked everyone to go back and think about the follow-up countermeasures carefully at night. Come and talk about it."

Liu Chih-Ping was the first to speak: "After I went back yesterday, I thought about it all night and decided to suggest developing a new app to compete with WeChat and start a new business outside of QQ. Chen Pingjiang is right. QQ is a PC-based product that is not suitable for mobile phones. The most important thing is that after so many years, it has more and more functions. If we want to be as simple as WeChat, we need to strip off too many functions."

"But the question is, will it be useful to separate it? Users' impression of QQ has been solidified. If we blindly modify it, it is very likely that we will not only fail to win the mobile market, but also lose our existing user base. The most critical issue is how to arrange the employees of many of our project teams once the simplification is carried out."

As soon as Liu Chih-ping finished speaking, someone immediately expressed his objection: "I don't agree with Lao Liu's point of view. It will take at least two or three months to re-develop it. In these two or three months, they may have 20 to 30 million users. There are only so many smartphones in China now. By the time everyone has WeChat installed, you will have no chance to launch an application with similar functions. We have to understand that this is not a PC terminal, but a smartphone terminal, and it will be limited by the popularity of smartphones."

"Starting a new business outside of QQ is like cutting off one's own arm. You have water at home but you are not using it, but you are looking for something far away."

Soon, the conference room was divided into two factions, and no one could convince the other. Xiao Ma Ge thought what he said made sense.

"In that case, let's vote." He said calmly.

Soon after, the voting result was 3 to 3, and the final decision was in the hands of Xiao Ma Ge.

Even Xiao Ma Ge, who is used to big scenes, couldn't help but feel a lot of pressure. If he took a wrong step, he might be doomed.

Chen Pingjiang was too cruel, he stabbed Tencent right in the heart.

Instant messaging is a core interest of Tencent and cannot be lost.

After a long while, he raised his right hand under everyone's gaze: "My idea is to develop new applications and QQ, and do both in parallel. It would be best if QQ can handle its competitors, but if it can't, then WeChat will take over. In the end, no matter which product wins, it will be a victory for Tencent. I hope everyone understands that now is not the time to talk about your own interests. The company is facing life and death, and we should focus on the overall strategy."

Seeing the victory in the vote, Liu Chih-ping breathed a sigh of relief: "Who will be responsible then?"

"The WeChat chat project needs to be fast. We encourage internal innovation and we will use the product of whoever comes out first. Zhang Xiaolong's team will work on it in Guangzhou, and the other team will be the R&D team in Chengdu."

“Whoever can do it first will be Tencent’s savior and hero. This time we are pushed to the edge of a cliff, with a bottomless abyss behind us.”

After listening to Pony Ma’s speech, Liu Chih-Ping felt a little regretful.

He recalled that he had gone to Dongjiang to invest in Renren, but was scared away by Chen Pingjiang's exaggerated offer.

It was also since then that things have been going badly. First, DNF was snatched away, then it suffered a major defeat on SNS. Now Kaixin.com is half dead, and later group buying was suppressed. Now the opponent has even invaded its own territory.

"If I were given another chance, I would definitely agree to the original offer. It is much better to be a teammate with such a person than an enemy."

If Chen Pingjiang knew what Liu Chih-ping was thinking, he could only apologize and say it was wishful thinking.

Chen Pingjiang has no connection with Tencent, nor is he unhappy with it.

It is just that as we emerge in the domestic Internet market, conflicts are inevitable.

If you want to develop, I want to develop too. If you want to live, I have to live too.

No one is targeting anyone, and no one is right or wrong.

Profits drive everything, and tens of thousands of people under him need to eat. (End of this chapter)