Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Lei Yijun smiled self-deprecatingly.

His idea was simple: to put pressure on his R&D department, and on himself.

The sales gap between the 360 G800 Pro and the Xiaomi 1S had been a wake-up call. He now realized the hardware compatibility and operational smoothness of the MIUI system were far inferior to the Aurora OS.

’Disband if we can’t win?’

Chen Yansen glanced at Zhou Hongyi, then at Lei Yijun. He hadn’t expected the success of the 360 Mobile Phone to have left such a psychological scar on Lei Yijun.

However, he didn’t take him seriously.

When it came to a businessman’s words, even if they weren’t ninety percent lies, they were at least half-truths.

In any case, Xiaomi’s flagship model was the Xiaomi MI2. Using only the Xiaomi 1S to test the market’s reaction wouldn’t result in a significant loss.

”Alright, but the Xiaomi 1S will need some hardware changes to unleash the full-throttle performance of the Aurora OS.”

Chen Yansen didn’t overthink it and nodded in agreement.

”I know. Thank you, President Chen.” Lei Yijun let out a long breath, then shot Zhou Hongyi a vicious glare.

Unbeknownst to him, Huang Zhang of Meizu was staring at him from behind, a disdainful sneer on his face. ’If I hadn’t taught him how to make phones, he wouldn’t know a damn thing about them,’ he thought.

In the lavish and exquisite banquet hall, everyone harbored their own thoughts.

At two in the afternoon, the large screen in the center of the stage suddenly lit up.

A round, plump orange bounced onto the screen, filling the entire LED display.

Then, the scene changed, showing the Orange Technology headquarters. Employee representatives from the Aurora OS R&D Department and the Industrial and Hardware Design Department appeared on camera to share the creative process behind the Orange Mobile Phone.

It was a bit crude, yet very down-to-earth!

For the fans, in particular, this was the first time they learned that behind every module of the Aurora OS were numerous R&D engineers.

They were from Qingbei, from Huake, and there were even programmers from Nokia, Motorola, and Google.

Footage of the Orange Mobile Phone’s casing being strength-tested was also revealed for the first time. Staff used drops, compressions, and torsions to check if the phone’s body was resistant to falls and deformation.

The simple, raw footage instantly captured the attention of fans and the media.

The camera then cut from Xucheng to the mobile phone factory in Shencheng City, showing the audience the manufacturing process of the Orange Mobile Phone.

This was followed by users from places like Yanjing, Jinling, Hu City, and Shencheng City sharing their experiences, and finally, a shot of several users in East Africa holding Orange Mobile Phones and shouting ”Orange” at the camera.

With a flash of light, Wang Teng, dressed in a sharp suit, stood in the spotlight and strode confidently onto the stage.

”I’d like to thank the more than 1,000 guests in attendance for taking the time and traveling far and wide to Xucheng for Orange Technology’s Autumn New Product Launch. I’m Wang Teng, thank you all!”

Compared to last time, Wang Teng, now with one hosting experience under his belt, was clearly much calmer and more composed. His hands didn’t shake, and his heart didn’t race. After finishing his opening remarks, he scanned the audience from left to right with a burning gaze, showing no trace of nervousness.

”Today, I’ll be introducing two new products and one intelligent voice interaction engine: the Orange C3 and the Qingcheng D1S.”

Wang Teng said slowly and deliberately.

After speaking, he quietly pressed the remote in his hand, and a high-definition CG image of the Orange C3 appeared on the large screen behind him.

Curved corners, ultra-narrow bezels, full-screen gesture controls, and not a single physical button on the front of the phone.

The body was ultra-thin, at only 6.58 millimeters.

In the 2012 smartphone market, it was an absolute standout.

”The Orange C3 continues the Orange C2’s legacy of high performance and great value, equipped with a Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core chip—the APQ8064. It uses a 28nm manufacturing process, which helps improve performance and reduce power consumption.”

”Each core can reach a maximum frequency of 1.7GHz, providing powerful computing capabilities to meet the demands of multitasking and running large applications. Its performance is over 60% higher than the Snapdragon MSM8260, with a 65% reduction in power consumption.”

”It integrates an Adreno 320 GPU, which supports advanced graphics and computing APIs, bringing users outstanding graphics processing power and a smooth gaming experience.”

As Wang Teng explained, he used practical examples to demonstrate each performance improvement to the audience.

”The main display is a 5.5-inch Jingdongfang HD Super AMOLED screen. Compared to traditional LCD screens, it has all-around improvements in ’image quality, power efficiency, and form factor.’ Its brightness can reach 800 to 1000 nits, so you can still see the screen clearly even in direct sunlight. It also uses pixel-shifting technology, which greatly reduces the risk of screen burn-in.”

As soon as Wang Teng finished speaking, the crowd realized the Orange C3 was destined to be expensive.

The material cost for the screen alone was 400 Hua Yuan per unit.

The chip cost was secondary. A Snapdragon APQ8064, originally bundled with a baseband for 50 US Dollars, was now cheaper. Because NVIDIA had dropped the price of its Tegra 3 processor from 42 to 32 US Dollars, Qualcomm had no choice but to follow suit to retain its key account customers, offering the chip to Orange Technology for 36 US Dollars.

The Xiaomi MI2 also used the Snapdragon APQ8064 chip. The gross profit from the chip’s price drop alone amounted to over 90 Hua Yuan per unit, adding an extra 4.6% to their gross margin.

Why were some smartphone manufacturers in 2012 so reluctant to increase their shipment volumes?

Was it due to insufficient production capacity at the assembly plants?

A shortage of core components?

It was neither!

Most were waiting for Moore’s Law to take effect—waiting for suppliers to lower their prices.

Therefore, it wasn’t that they weren’t making money. Rather, they were delaying to earn more later—earning slowly, methodically, and with control.

Take the Orange C2, for example. In January, the total material cost for one unit was 1,740 Hua Yuan. Now, only seven months later, it has dropped to 1,520 Hua Yuan.

Not even counting production, after-sales, sales, and transportation costs, the difference in component prices alone meant an extra 220 Hua Yuan of profit per unit.

”It runs Aurora OS 1.4, with a 3GB RAM and 16GB ROM configuration. Now, some of you might be wondering why the Orange C3 uses 3GB of RAM. Are we just trying to make money off the hardware? I can assure you, that is absolutely not the case!”

”The Orange C3 has the built-in Moss voice interaction engine. To ensure users can experience its features at their full potential, it needs the extra RAM...”

Wang Teng slowly added.

The cameras on the Orange C3 were the same as the Orange C2’s: a 16-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel front camera.

It had a 2620 mAh battery capacity, supported fast charging mode, supported 1080p full HD video playback and recording, and was equipped with components like a gravity sensor, accelerometer, light sensor, and proximity sensor.

It took Wang Teng an hour to finish presenting the software ecosystem and hardware modules of the Orange C3.

Everyone in the audience was waiting for the price to be revealed!

Lei Yijun’s expression was calm, but a flicker of secret delight crossed his eyes. It seemed that after establishing a foothold in the mobile phone industry, Orange Technology was still planning to target the high-end market.

In that instant, the pressure on him suddenly lifted.

Yu Chendong, Chen Yongming, Huang Zhang, Zhou Hongyi, Ding Lei, and the others were also secretly calculating the Orange C3’s material costs and final selling price.

”2,899 Hua Yuan!”

Wang Teng pressed the controller, and the image on the screen behind him changed.

The 32GB version of the Orange C3 was priced at 3,199 Hua Yuan, and the 64GB version at 3,699 Hua Yuan.

This price was far lower than the launch prices of the Apple 4S, the Mountain Star Galaxy Note 2, and the High Technology Corporation One X, and about four hundred Hua Yuan higher than the Meizu MX2 and the OPPO Finder.

”This must be the world’s first smartphone with 3GB of RAM.”

Yu Chendong couldn’t help but remark with emotion.

Generally speaking, 2GB of RAM was more than enough. In 2012, apps didn’t use much memory. But Wang Teng had given a series of reasons, all to ensure the user experience for the intelligent interaction system, AI imaging, and AI search engine.

The Lingxi Browser and Lingxi Search made their debut, becoming built-in software on the Orange Mobile Phone.

Given the Orange Mobile Phone’s shipment volume, they could capture over 10% of the market share within a year.

Next, Wang Teng moved on to introduce the Qingcheng D1S.

This phone was originally named the Orange D1S, an upgraded version of the Orange D1. But after Zhou Shouzhi joined Orange Technology, he distinguished between the high-end and low-end series.

The hardware configuration of the Qingcheng D1S didn’t change much, but the changes were to core components. For example, the 4.0-inch TFT screen was changed to a 4.5-inch one, and the RAM was upgraded from 512MB to 1GB.

”And the price of the Qingcheng D1S is...?”

Wang Teng paused deliberately for three seconds before continuing, ”999 Hua Yuan!”

Fuck!

How much?

Yu Chendong, Lei Yijun, Zhou Hongyi, and the others instantly froze, staring stiffly at Wang Teng.

’This bastard isn’t leaving anyone a path to survive!’

Meizu’s Huang Zhang opened his mouth, desperately wanting to pick up his chair and hurl it at Chen Yansen.