Chapter 694 1 Million in a Day, 6 Million Globally in Two Days! Making Cars?

“She’s gone?” Song Yuncheng asked in a low voice.

“Yeah. Want something to drink?” Chen Yansen replied casually.

When Song Yuncheng said “she,” she meant Meng Jie. But when Chen Yansen replied, he was thinking of Ye Qiuping.

“I don’t want anything.” Song Yuncheng shook her head. She hated this feeling of sharing Chen Yansen with other women, as if she were on a roster.

Little did she know, someone else had just cut in line.

“Come for a walk with me.”

Chen Yansen stood up, slid open the glass door, and strode toward the company store across the way.

Seeing this, Song Yuncheng quickly hurried after him.

Before they got close, they saw a young man with bleached-blond hair sitting on a small stool. An Orange C3S was propped up in front of him, its screen showing a live-stream interface with the camera pointed at the massive, teeming crowd in line.

He was clearly live-streaming the grand spectacle of the first day of Orange’s offline product launch.

Chen Yansen took a closer look and saw gift effects continuously popping up in the bottom-left corner of the screen.

‘You can make money from this?’

‘How fucking absurd!’

Chen Yansen didn’t enter the company store. Instead, he turned in the opposite direction and walked west.

Along the way, they would occasionally see an Orange Q1 Electric Vehicle drive by, and Kuai Pao Deliverymen and Cloud Speed Couriers were shuttling back and forth between the shops along the street.

Young people paying for things were already long accustomed to scanning a code to pay.

He observed discreetly: out of every 10 people, 5 used Orange Pay, 3 used WeChat Pay, and only 2 used Wealth Treasure.

Of course, according to more detailed market reports, Orange Pay’s offline market share was as high as 60%.

Although WeChat Pay was tied to nearly 700 million active social users, Orange Pay also had hundreds of millions of Yu’e Bao users with up to 600 billion in deposited funds. It also had deep coverage of online payment scenarios like Pinbei, Kuai Pao, Gaode, Fast Taxi, and Ofo bikes.

Combined with its first-mover advantage and frequent “scan-to-pay” instant discount promotions, WeChat Pay’s and Wealth Treasure’s attempts to grab market share were not very effective.

In terms of financial resources, Senlian Capital was no weaker than Ah Li or Penguin.

In terms of the precision of its subsidy distribution, WeChat Pay and Wealth Treasure also couldn’t compare to Orange Pay.

Therefore, although the three companies competed in the offline payment sector, they were all relatively restrained. None of them had launched a large-scale “red envelope war.”

「At the same time.」

On Tver Street in Beibing Country, a long line of customers snaked outside an Orange Intelligent Life Hall. People would occasionally crane their necks to see how many meters they still were from the entrance.

Thanks to the user base built up by the Qingcheng D2, Qingcheng D2 SE, and Orange C3S, the new Qingcheng D2S, Orange C4, and Yaocheng X2 were met with a frenzy of excitement from users the moment they were released.

Fashionably dressed young men and women gathered in twos and threes, discussing in low voices.

“Alina, the Orange C4’s performance is great too. Looking at its specs, it’s not at all worse than Apple or Mountain Star. There’s no need to spend an extra ten thousand Rubles to buy the Yaocheng X2.”

A tall, fair-skinned young woman, with just a few freckles on her nose and cheeks, tried to persuade her companion.

“Yulia, you don’t get it! The Yaocheng X2 is equipped with the latest Alexa voice assistant, while the Orange C4 is a version behind. The user experience isn’t even in the same league.”

Alina looked disdainful and rejected her best friend’s suggestion without hesitation.

But after paying for rent, food, clothes, and cosmetics, she didn’t actually have much money left over.

A standard 32GB Yaocheng X2 sold for 30,000 Rubles, while the 64GB high-spec version sold for 36,000 Rubles.

In fact, if Beibing Country hadn’t abolished its import tariff on mobile phones in September, Chen Yansen would have raised the price by another 10%.

Alina represented the true thinking of many young people in Moscow. For them, whether it was an iPhone 5s, a Mountain Star Galaxy Note 3, or a Yaocheng X2, it was something to show off when they went out.

The Orange C4 was ten thousand Rubles cheaper and was merely a sub-flagship phone. How could it possibly be worthy of her status?

This was similar to those try-hard kids in Hua Country who’d sell a kidney to buy an Apple phone, flexing at the risk of their lives.

“Then don’t come asking me for money next month,” Yulia reminded her with a helpless, dark expression.

Earn it in Moscow, spend it in Moscow!

High income, but high cost of living, too!

“Yulia, come on! You don’t really want to see me eat nothing but bread for a month, do you?” Alina immediately backed down.

“I really don’t know what to do with you.” Yulia sighed. She and Alina had been university classmates and had joined the same company after graduation.

Their incomes were nearly identical, but their attitudes toward spending were worlds apart.

For her, the specs of the Qingcheng D2S were more than enough.

The 13-megapixel rear camera, combined with Orange Technology’s AI imaging technology, meant its photography performance wasn’t bad either.

Half an hour later, both of them had bought the phones they wanted and headed back to their apartment, completely satisfied.

Similar scenes were also playing out in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Western Europe.

From the winter of 2011 to the autumn of 2013, over a period of two years, Orange Technology finally established a firm foothold in overseas markets and gained a large number of loyal fans.

In particular, the establishment of a developer community and the implementation of a reward mechanism for app submissions greatly enriched the Aurora Future OS app ecosystem, which in turn reduced consumer hesitation.

Furthermore, Aurora Future OS’s performance in terms of security, usability, and smoothness also surpassed that of iOS and Android, leading to a growing number of Orange Mobile Phone users overseas.

October 19th was the second day after the new Orange Mobile Phone launch, the first day of offline sales in the domestic market, and also the first day of sales in overseas markets.

Online and offline sales networks sold a cumulative total of 3.716 million units!

Across both days, total global sales reached 5.943 million units, with a transaction volume of 14.52 billion!

The overseas market sold 1 million units in a single day!

Although this sales figure covered multiple countries and regions, including Africa, Southeast Asia, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe, it was enough to prove that Orange Technology had successfully gone global and secured a certain market share abroad.

The global first-week sales for the Apple iPhone 5s and 5c were 9.2 million units. Many people believed that Orange Technology would only need three days to match this record.

Fueled by sustained media hype, the status of Orange Mobile Phones in the minds of Hua Country users grew higher and higher.

Although some pointed out that the Qingcheng series accounted for 60% of Orange Technology’s sales and that its revenue couldn’t compare to Apple’s, nobody liked to hear the truth.

That evening, the seven o’clock news ran a special report on the Yaocheng X2, with a heavy focus on the Celestial Craft A100 Chip.

Ordinary people might not know, but how could the higher-ups not know?

Compared to the Kirin chip, which used ARM architecture, the Celestial Craft A100 Chip was a truly homegrown, self-developed chip.

The CCTV report was tantamount to giving the Celestial Craft A100 Chip an official seal of approval—this was Hua Country’s first self-developed chip!

「At the same time.」

After being rejected by Chen Yansen, Jia Yaoting set his sights on Lenovo Holding Corporation.

After all, Lenovo had just surpassed HP in the PC business to become the world’s number one computer brand.

If he could gain Liu Chengzhi’s approval and support, subsequent fundraising would undoubtedly be much easier.

He had his investment department calculate it: the initial costs of buying land, setting up production lines, establishing an R&D lab for electric motors and electronic controls, plus labor costs, would require an investment of at least 5 billion.

Without pulling a few business tycoons into the game, how could that sum of money possibly be enough?

「On the other side.」

He Xiaopeng of UC Browser found his influence gradually shrinking after accepting a strategic investment from Ah Li.

According to the plan, Ah Li would make a third investment next March, thereby achieving a full buyout.

‘When that time comes, will there still be a place for me at UC?’

Therefore, He Xiaopeng was in a near-hands-off state regarding UC’s management. He attended one weekly meeting, but otherwise spent his time drinking and dining with Lei Yijun or chatting with friends in investment banking, single-mindedly searching for the next big thing.

‘I can’t just retire in my early thirties, can I?’

He Xiaopeng aimlessly scrolled through the news, pondering which bar to go to that night.

Suddenly, a headline caught his eye: “Tesla Model S LR Sales in Hua Exceed 3,000 Units, 4890 Deep Blue Battery Could Be the Biggest Winner!”

‘Purely electric cars?’

He Xiaopeng remembered that three days ago, over drinks, Lei Yijun had told him that he also wanted to get into the new energy vehicle industry if he had the chance.

‘Build cars?’

‘Is that even feasible?’

He Xiaopeng stroked the short stubble on his chin, pondering deeply.