Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

The next day, a group of market promoters for Fast Taxi appeared in Terminal 3 of Yanjing Airport.

”Hey driver, you got a smartphone?”

Hong Jun saw his chance and walked up to a taxi driver to strike up a conversation. Before he could even finish his sentence, the driver offered him a Yuxi cigarette.

The driver hadn’t wanted to bother with him, but for the sake of the cigarette, he replied nonchalantly, ”Of course I do. What era are we in? Who doesn’t have a smartphone these days?”

Despite what he said, smartphone shipments in 2011 were just over 80 million units. In reality, there were fewer than 300 million smartphone users nationwide, a penetration rate of less than 22%.

Hong Jun rolled his eyes inwardly, ignoring the driver’s posturing. He launched into his pitch, ”I work for Fast Taxi. Hey man, want to give our product a try? Once you install it, you can get online requests from the tens of thousands of passengers at Yanjing Airport every day. You’ll get so many ride requests your hands will go numb, and you’ll make so much money your legs will turn to jelly.”

”Bullshit! Who are you trying to fool? It’s just a taxi app. It’s not like I haven’t used one before. You get a dozen-or-so rides a day, the GPS is inaccurate, and it’s total garbage.”

The driver pursed his lips, his face full of disdain.

”That’s because you haven’t used Fast Taxi! Ever heard of Gaode Map? It’s got the same boss as Fast Taxi. It syncs with the latest traffic information nationwide every day, so the positioning is super accurate.”

Hong Jun, now with a cigarette dangling from his own lips, shot the breeze with the driver.

”For real? Didn’t the boss of Orange Technology buy Gaode Map? Look at my phone—it’s the latest Orange D1!” the driver said, pulling out his phone with a grin.

Ever since Gaode Map went free, this group of drivers had almost always used it for navigation when they encountered unfamiliar roads.

”Fast Taxi, Gaode Map, and Orange Mobile Phone all have the same boss. Right now, new drivers get 14 days commission-free when they sign up. Plus, you get an extra 2-yuan subsidy for every ride you complete. How about it, man? Want to download it?” Hong Jun explained fluently.

’Fourteen days commission-free?’

’And a 2-yuan subsidy per ride?’

DiDi Dache definitely didn’t have a deal that good.

Hearing about these incentives, the driver readily opened the Orange Application Mall, then downloaded and installed Fast Taxi.

’Nailed it!’

Hong Jun was delighted and moved on to find his next target.

「Meanwhile.」

Cheng Weixing, holding the authorization documents from the Transportation Association that Huake Investment Attraction had procured, walked into Yanjing’s largest taxi company and knocked on the door of the general manager’s office.

”Another taxi app? Didn’t I tell you? No official documents, no discussion,” Wang Baofeng, the general manager of Xinyue Taxi Company, waved his hand impatiently.

”President Wang, these are the authorization documents from the Transportation Association. Please take a look.”

Cheng Weixing sat down with a swagger, his assistant standing behind him.

This display of confidence made Wang Baofeng hesitant to underestimate him.

After all, someone who could get their hands on official authorization documents might not have much money, but in a place like Yanjing, their connections had to be terrifyingly strong.

When he saw a check tucked inside the documents, Wang Baofeng suppressed a smile and deliberately put on a stern face. ”Boss Cheng, what is the meaning of this?”

”I’m asking your company to promote my software. Isn’t it only reasonable to pay a promotion fee?” Cheng Weixing shrugged, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

”No problem. Since the Transportation Association has approved it, we at Xinyue will naturally offer our full support,” Wang Baofeng readily agreed, and the check silently found its way into his pocket.

Cheng Weixing saw it happen but deliberately played dumb.

In any case, the other party would handle the compliance procedures themselves. As far as he was concerned, this money was a legitimate promotion fee.

Once the deal was settled, Cheng Weixing left a colleague from the Market Department behind to handle the subsequent software installation and driver training.

With his two-pronged approach of authorization documents and promotion fees, Cheng Weixing secured deals with three taxi companies in less than a day.

Meanwhile, Hong Jun’s team had successfully established Fast Taxi’s reputation in Terminal 3 of Yanjing Airport.

Getting drivers to download Fast Taxi was actually simple: you just had to make them believe they could really make money using it.

Cheng Weixing didn’t have to worry about the user side at all. With the Orange Application Mall, Toutiao, and the Lingxi Browser funneling traffic to Fast Taxi, there was no shortage of passenger orders.

What’s more, the 12-yuan discount on the first ride was equivalent to a free ride for any trip within four kilometers.

Most users with a Yanjing IP address would download and install Fast Taxi without hesitation after seeing the promotional poster: ”Fast Taxi, First Ride Free.”

Who would pass up a freebie?

Cheng Weixing successfully replicated his classic Hang City strategy in the Yanjing market, relying on the ”12 yuan off for new users” and ”14 days commission-free for new drivers” policies to quickly gain a foothold.

「At the same time.」

Cheng Wei soon got the news. He hadn’t expected Cheng Weixing to move so quickly. In just a few days, he had not only secured deals with over a dozen major taxi companies but had also aggressively taken over Terminal 3 at Yanjing Airport.

Due to the sharp decline in DiDi Dache’s order volume and its 12% commission fee, drivers were flocking to Fast Taxi.

Although the 14-day commission-free period wasn’t long, once passengers and drivers developed a habit of using the app, it would take DiDi ten or even a hundred times the effort to win back the market.

”Boss, should we lower our commission rate or follow Fast Taxi’s lead and offer a commission-free period for new drivers?” asked Zhong Yuan, the head of the operations department.

Driver loyalty was extremely low; some even ran both apps simultaneously to accept rides.

Fast Taxi’s subsidies were generous, its promotion was effective, and it had more orders than DiDi Dache.

As one rose, the other fell. If DiDi didn’t take countermeasures soon, they would be in a passive position.

”Why choose? We can obviously do both! Starting tomorrow, new drivers on DiDi Dache will also enjoy a 14-day commission-free period. In addition, DiDi Dache’s commission rate will be lowered to 10%,” Cheng Wei said, shaking his head and rejecting Zhong Yuan’s either-or proposal.

”Got it, Boss. As for new customer subsidies, we’ll match Fast Taxi,” Zhong Yuan nodded and quickly replied.

”Increase the driver’s per-ride subsidy to 3 yuan!” Cheng Wei continued.

’If you’re going to fight, you have to hit hard!’

He had carefully analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of DiDi Dache and Fast Taxi. Aside from cash flow issues, DiDi Dache’s order matching and positioning systems were slightly inferior.

That meant he had to increase driver income to pull them over to DiDi Dache’s side.

The drivers were the foundation. Without them, Fast Taxi’s traffic advantage would be completely wiped out.

「The next morning, a notice popped up on the DiDi Dache driver app.」

It instantly won the drivers back!

Seeing this, Cheng Weixing immediately lowered his commission rate to 5% and simultaneously increased the per-ride subsidy for drivers to 3 yuan.

Furthermore, he also issued coupons for second and third rides to encourage user activity.

Business wars on the internet were artless. It all came down to a price war.

...

...

Hundreds of kilometers away in Xucheng, Chen Yansen opened a work email from Cheng Weixing.

In just ten days, Fast Taxi had burned through nearly ten million yuan in marketing expenses in Yanjing. Subway stations like Xizhimen, Guomao, Xidan, and Huilongguan were all plastered with huge Fast Taxi posters.

Fortunately, the results were obvious. Fast Taxi was on a tear, with its average daily order volume exceeding 70,000.

DiDi Dache was also burning through cash like crazy. The incentive policies for both passengers and drivers were changing on an almost daily basis.

Currently, both DiDi Dache and Fast Taxi had lowered their driver commission rates to 3%, and the per-ride subsidy was fixed at five yuan.

The daily cost of subsidies was already in the millions, and as orders increased, this figure would continue to grow. Perhaps in ten days, it would rise to 3 million, or even 5 million a day.

Chen Yansen wasn’t bothered. He just hadn’t expected that after he brought Penguin and Ah Li on board, Qian Du would also jump into the fray.

And in 2012, Qian Du was no weakling among the BAT companies. With a peak market value of over 50 billion US Dollars, it was a true internet giant.

’Let’s fight it out for a month and see what happens. If Qian Du makes an additional investment, we’ll have to change our strategy,’ Chen Yansen mused to himself.

At that moment, a week had passed since the official release of the Xiaomi 1S and Xiaomi MI2.

The Xiaomi 1S had sold a cumulative 430,000 units, and the Xiaomi MI2 had sold 590,000 units, for a total of 1.02 million units.

The numbers looked good, but what irked Lei Yijun was that despite having the same specs and price, the Xiaomi 1S had lost to the 360 Mobile Phone in weekly sales data.

In the past few days, Zhou Hongyi hadn’t missed an opportunity to mock and ridicule Xiaomi.

”A certain ’millet’ brand is also trying to play the benchmark game like Orange Mobile Phone. Today, I picked two thousand-yuan phones, and the benchmark results were unexpected. It seems having the same specs doesn’t mean you have the same performance.”

Zhou Hongyi personally ran benchmark tests on the 360 G800 Pro Shine and the Xiaomi 1S. In the end, the 360 Mobile Phone scored 7448, while the Xiaomi only scored 7109.

Li Wanqiang immediately responded, bluntly stating that Sect Leader Zhou’s position was biased, so of course, his test results were biased too. He argued that the evaluation should be done by a third-party organization.

Full of confidence, Zhou Hongyi found three major influencers from the digital and tech circles, including Luo Yonghao.

He even live-streamed the tests on the YY Platform, but without exception, the 360 G800 Pro Shine achieved the highest Antutu benchmark score every time.

Clearly, Zhou Hongyi had already been certain that the 360 Mobile Phone would outperform the Xiaomi 1S in benchmarks, which was why he had so boldly decided to do a live stream.

After the flame war, there was no clear winner or loser. Instead, both sides saw a rise in sales.

For users, there wasn’t much of a difference between a score of 7100 and 7400.

For a while, the online sales of the Xiaomi 1S and the 360 G800 Pro Shine soared, leaving Lenovo, ZTE, and Coolpad in the dust.

Seeing that this marketing method helped boost the 360 Mobile Phone’s sales, Zhou Hongyi began provoking Li Wanqiang and Lei Yijun on Weibo every few days.

Netizens advised him to do more than just talk and schedule an offline meeting.

When Zhou Hongyi saw these kinds of messages, he just smiled faintly and chose to ignore them.

After a few days of 360 and Xiaomi slinging mud at each other, netizens gradually caught on, realizing the two companies were just doing it for hype—all thunder and no rain.

The hype quickly died down.

However, Orange Mobile Phone’s sales were unaffected. The Orange D1’s hardware specs were a tier below the Xiaomi 1S and the 360 G800 Pro Shine, but it also sold for only 799 yuan.

The overlap in their potential customer bases was extremely low!

Meanwhile, the Orange C2’s specs were a significant step up from the Xiaomi 1S and the 360 G800 Pro Shine. They simply weren’t competitors in the same price bracket.

Before leaving work, Chen Yansen glanced at the total online sales statistics for Orange Mobile Phone: the Orange C1 had sold 2.9 million units, the Orange C2 had sold 3.6 million units, and the Orange D1 had sold 8.2 million units.

That was a cumulative total of 14.7 million units sold in 2012!

This figure was basically on par with Mountain Star’s total shipments for all of 2011, but the Mountain Star Galaxy series was performing very strongly in sales this year.

Whether Orange Technology could match Mountain Star’s shipment volume in the domestic market remained to be seen.

As Chen Yansen stepped into the elevator, intending to head back to Xuyuan, five young men were huddled together in a residential building on the outskirts of Yanjing, busy with their laptops.

On the table was a dense array of modem pool devices.

”Brother Hui, this is so damn awesome! Fifty to sixty thousand a day! This thing is a money-printing machine!” one of the young men exclaimed, his expression ecstatic.

”Everyone, be damn careful! Vary the pick-up and drop-off locations. Don’t make it too obvious. If we get caught, we’ll all end up in the slammer,” Brother Hui warned in a cold voice, his face grim.

”It’s a shame Fast Taxi’s risk control is so strict. It can easily detect our location spoofing software,” said another young man from the corner.

”Don’t get too greedy. If we can keep this up for a month, everyone will walk away with several hundred thousand,” Brother Hui said. As he finished speaking, a look of longing couldn’t help but appear on his face.