Chapter 141: 1999 Yuan? If You Don

August 6th, 9:15 a. m.

In front of the Sky Garden Hotel's main entrance in Xucheng, luxury cars lined up and crowds surged.

A banner hung in the first-floor lobby: "Chengzi Tech New Product Launch — Let Technology Change Life!"

Journalists present raised their cameras and snapped "click-click" photos of the entrance materials, silently pondering the meaning behind that phrase.

If aiming to change ordinary people's lives, Chengzi Phone's price likely wouldn't exceed 3,000 yuan;

if targeting a small segment, Chengzi Phone might be positioned as a flagship model, priced likely at 3,499 yuan, 3,699 yuan, or 3,999 yuan.

Chen Yansen, Wang Teng, and Wang Zihao stood in the first-floor lobby, greeting visiting competitors, suppliers, and media scholars.

"Sen-ge, Principal Tang is here!"

Wang Zihao nudged Chen Yansen, who was talking with Huang Zhang, and whispered a reminder.

"Huang Zong, excuse me for a moment. Zihao, take Huang Zong to the banquet hall."

Chen Yansen instructed Wang Zihao.

Saying this, he turned and walked toward the entrance, Wang Teng following behind.

Wang Teng felt that as Product Director of the R&D Department, he shouldn't be handling brand or marketing duties, but since his boss assigned him this, he had no choice but to stay here.

"Professor Tang, I didn't expect you to arrive so early — let me take you upstairs."

Chen Yansen smiled, assuming the demeanor of a good student, stepping forward to greet Tang Qingshan.

"You go on with your work. My colleagues and I are just here to enjoy the buzz — no need to bother with us."

Tang Qingshan smiled broadly at Chen Yansen calling him "Professor," his lips nearly stretching to his ears.

Who wouldn't be delighted to have a student as accomplished as Chen Yansen?

Now, whenever he attended meetings and entrepreneurship among college students came up, he'd bring up Chen Yansen as a point of pride.

Chen Yansen glanced at the group accompanying Tang Qingshan — all department heads — and insisted on escorting them to the banquet hall.

But Tang Qingshan feared delaying his duties and waved him off repeatedly; under the hotel staff's guidance, he broke away from Chen Yansen and walked straight into the elevator.

He often came here to eat — he knew the place well.

Chen Yansen smiled and dropped the matter.

Soon after, Chen Yongming from OPPO arrived with his assistant, striding forward.

Wang Teng watched Chen Yongming approach, feeling dazed — half a year ago, he was still a product manager at OPPO's R&D center; now he was Chengzi Tech's product lead.

"Chief Chen, welcome to Xucheng! Please go upstairs!"

Chen Yansen stepped forward, shook Chen Yongming's hand, and greeted him warmly.

Chen Yongming smiled in return, secretly sizing up Chen Yansen, and couldn't help but reflect: today's young people are far more aggressive in entrepreneurship than our old crew.

In fact, Chen Yongming was only in his early forties — quite young among entrepreneurs.

The two exchanged brief pleasantries at the entrance, then Chen Yongming followed Wang Teng toward the banquet hall.

At this moment, Wang Zihao had settled Huang Zhang from Meizu and returned to the first floor.

A commotion came from outside — Xiaomi's Lei Yi and Li Wanqiang had just entered.

"Chief Lei, welcome to Xucheng! After the launch, let's chat properly."

Chen Yansen shook Lei Yi's hand, appearing very familiar.

Nearby journalists quickly snapped photos, silently puzzled: these two rivals seemed to get along well.

Lei Yi, seeing Chen Yansen's warmth, instantly lost what little hostility he'd felt.

Whether one more or one fewer rival existed seemed unimportant.

No need to be cold!

Besides, Chengzi Phone's ultra-narrow bezels and fully virtual buttons made Lei Yi secretly think: this step was too big — users might struggle to accept it.

"Why did Chief Chen choose to build your own factory?"

After stopping, Lei Yi asked curiously.

At this time, aside from OPPO considering building its own production base, Xiaomi, Meizu, Ku Sect, and others all chose to cooperate with Yinghuada, BYD, and Foxconn.

First, management costs were lower; second, contract manufacturers had rich supplier networks, better controlling procurement costs, quality, and delivery cycles; third, smartphone production lines were extremely expensive — initial equipment investment alone required hundreds of millions.

Lei Yi had money, but before Xiaomi's IPO, he lacked the confidence to build a phone factory — the cost was simply too high.

If production-line technology updated too quickly, you'd have to buy new equipment again — which phone maker could bear that pressure?

Xiaomi only built a self-operated factory in Changping, Beijing, with an annual capacity of ten million units, six years later when funds were ample — but its mid- and low-end models were still outsourced.

"Building our own factory is more expensive, but it lets us control production schedules and ensure stable quality and output."

Chen Yansen smiled and offered a casual excuse.

Lei Yi nodded — Chen Yansen's reasoning made sense, but he felt it wasn't the real reason.

He didn't press further; if the other party didn't want to say, asking was pointless.

Chen Yansen had Zihao escort the two upstairs.

By 9:40 a. m., all attendees had gradually arrived.

Chen Yansen had greeted dozens of people at the entrance in one go, and now deeply felt such events truly required a brand manager who understood people and knew proper etiquette.

Unfortunately, Ye Qiuping wouldn't be able to start until mid-August.

"Sen-ge, it's about time — the host is urging us."

Wang Teng came downstairs and reminded Chen Yansen.

"Let's go."

Chen Yansen replied and followed Wang Teng into the elevator, heading straight to the top-floor banquet hall.

Unlike last time when he attended the annual meeting, this time the hall was filled with rows of chairs instead of round dining tables.

The first three rows were occupied by representatives from Gao Tong, Xia Pu, and Sony as suppliers, representatives from Xiaomi, OPPO, Meizu, Ku Sect, and other smartphone manufacturers, along with the university president and department heads of Xuyuan University.

The middle few rows were media personnel, and the back few rows were Aurora System fans, including Weibo lucky-draw winners and Fox Taobao Diamond-tier users.

At 10 o'clock sharp, the host handed the stage over to Chen Yansen.

Although the Sky Garden was the most luxurious hotel in the city, it still fell a bit short of a professional conference hall and could barely squeeze in just over 500 seats.

Some uninvited print media and self-media could only stand along the corridors on both sides, staring at the center of the stage.

Chen Yansen took the microphone and walked onstage with confidence and ease.

A product launch was his first experience, but he had attended countless occasions like financing talks, employee meetings, and corporate annual events.

For someone like him, there was no such thing as nervousness.

After stepping onstage, Chen Yansen did not speak right away. Instead, he calmly swept his gaze from left to right, then said with a light smile: "Thank you to all our industry peers, partners, media friends, and Aurora System users. Thank you all for coming to the Sister Chengzi phone launch."

"Today's theme is: let technology change lives! Before the launch, I'd like to talk about the original intention behind founding Sister Chengzi phones."

Chen Yansen stood onstage, enunciating clearly, speaking as if chatting with friends, his tone full of warmth.

"A 16GB iPhone 4 sold for 4,999 yuan, and the 32GB version for 5,999 yuan. Back then I was thinking, for a young person like me who came from a small town, how long would I have to work to afford a smartphone?"

"One month, two months, or three months? Too expensive, and the time it takes is too long! I felt phones shouldn't be this expensive!"

"Bring the price down! Let technology serve the masses, let everyone enjoy the fruits of technological progress, not just a select few."

A few sentences from Chen Yansen, and the atmosphere was already stirred up.

The people present, especially the media and fans—not everyone could afford an iPhone; many earned less than five thousand a month.

Besides, beyond phones, daily expenses included food, clothing, housing, and transport—which of those didn't cost money?

After saying that, Chen Yansen didn't rush to announce the Sister Chengzi phone's price; instead, he pressed the remote and switched the display.

Three Sister Chengzi phones in different colors appeared on the big screen: black, white, and silver.

"First, let's look at the 'brain' of the Sister Chengzi phone—the processor. We chose the Gao Tong Snapdragon MSM8260 dual-core processor, Cortex-A9 architecture, with a main frequency of up to 1.5GHz."

"Simply put, processing performance is stronger, you can run multiple apps at once without lag. Even mobile games with extremely high demands on graphics processing and computing speed, like 'Black Pegasus' and 'Auto Academy,' can run smoothly."

While Chen Yansen was introducing the processor, Lei Yi's heart tightened, but he quickly relaxed again.

In 2011, the Snapdragon MSM8260 processor was a best-selling product in the S3 series, and many domestic models used this processor.

The difference was, prices varied—2,999 yuan, 3,699 yuan, all of them—yet Lei Yi's pricing was 1,999 yuan.

"Now let's look at memory: 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, with support for up to 32GB expansion cards."

This configuration, placed a decade or so later, would be e-waste, but in 2011, it was the memory level only flagship models had.

Many people were guessing the Sister Chengzi phone's price.

Although Chen Yansen had spoken grandly before, what businessman doesn't make money?

Most people, judging by the processor and memory, estimated the Sister Chengzi phone's price should be between 2,999 and 3,299 yuan.

"The screen is a 4.5-inch TFT panel with multi-touch support, main display resolution of 960×640, delivering clearer, more refined image quality, giving users an excellent video-watching and photo-browsing experience…"

Chen Yansen introduced each item one by one, in the style of future phone launches.

Next, he introduced the 8-megapixel camera, LED fill light, 2,200mAh battery, as well as core parameters like the gravity sensor, light sensor, and proximity sensor.

Lei Yi's brow furrowed tighter and tighter, his heart full of doubt.

Judging by the battery capacity, Chen Yansen hadn't cut corners—but where did the screen's driver circuitry and flex cables go?

Thinking of this, Lei Yi looked toward Li Wanqiang.

Li Wanqiang shook his head; several solutions flashed through his mind, but he felt each was either too risky or too costly.

As if Chen Yansen could read minds, after finishing the hardware, he steered the topic to software.

From the technical difficulties of solving the narrow bezel, to the solution.

For the media and fans, this segment was a bit dry, but for R&D personnel, it undoubtedly opened up new avenues of thought.

Apart from the optimization details of AuroraOS, everything else was shared, including COF packaging technology and the change of back-cover material.

Only after Lei Yi finished listening did he suddenly understand.

"Because of this, the Sister Chengzi phone's bill of materials cost 200 yuan more than originally planned, but I believe it was worth it. Abandoning touch keys and adopting full-screen gesture operation is the future trend of smartphones."

Chen Yansen stood on stage, swiping left and right on the screen with his finger, the pages scrolling smoothly.

And to exit an app, a single swipe upward was all it took.

Fewer steps meant a better experience.

"What do you think this phone should sell for?"

Chen Yansen looked around, saw everyone waiting for him to announce the price, yet smiled slightly and tossed the question to the audience.

Quite a few people raised their hands, wanting to join the interaction.

Seeing this, the host handed the microphone to one of the fans.

Of course, to ensure the effect and avoid surprises, this seemingly white-collar young man was actually an engineer at Sister Chengzi Tech.

"I think 2,999 yuan is reasonable." This pre-arranged 'plant' said with a straight face.

The Meizu M9 released earlier this year priced its 8GB version at 2,499 yuan, but in terms of screen, processor, RAM, and camera, it was far inferior to the Sister Chengzi phone.

So the script the brand department prepared for the 'plant' was 2,999 yuan—500 yuan more than the Meizu M9.

"2,999 yuan—do you all think that's okay? Can everyone afford it?" Chen Yansen asked with a smile.

Such a down-to-earth launch event was a first for many reporters, who couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"I still think it's expensive! Drop another 1,000 yuan, and it would barely be reasonable!"

After everyone's laughter subsided a little, Chen Yansen said with a serious expression.

1,999 yuan?

Lei Yi's head was buzzing.

He felt that everything Chen Yansen said was exactly what he had prepared to say at the Xiaomi launch. The Xiaomi launch date was already set, and the price had long been finalized internally.

Compared with the Sister Chengzi phone, Xiaomi's disadvantages in system and storage were obvious, and the price was identical—making it easy for users to compare the two.

When the time comes, Xiaomi might just become Sister Chengzi's phone's "stepping stone."

How about dropping another 10 or 20 yuan?

Lei Yijun calculated silently to himself.

The moment Chen Yansen finished speaking, the bosses of Meizu, Oppo, Ku Sect, and other manufacturers instantly furrowed their brows.

Sister Chengzi's phone has these specs, and it only sells for 1,999 yuan?

Then in the future, who would still buy their phones? How would everyone keep making easy money?

"But personally, I think 1,999 yuan is still a bit expensive."

Chen Yansen paused, then added another line, light as a feather.

Damn!

What is this kid trying to do?

Lei Yijun's smile vanished completely from his face. If the price drops any further, no one will have any profit left — how are they supposed to keep playing?

He had originally planned to be the one flipping the table, but he never expected Chen Yansen to flip his table right out from under him!

The phone manufacturer representatives in the front row now had faces the color of iron.

Chen Yansen's pricing move had undoubtedly offended every first- and second-tier domestic brand. They all had material costs of 700–800 yuan, plus R&D and production costs on top of that.

Wouldn't it be nice to just brag a little at the launch event and sell it for 2,999 yuan or 3,999 yuan?

If you don't want to make money, fine — but don't cut off everyone's livelihood!

(End of chapter)