Chapter 214: Chen Yansen: Where Did 360's 400 Million Users Go? The Decision

No. 335 Guoding Road, Mama Ali headquarters.

"As of seven-thirty, Xuhui District has 713 delivery orders, and only 29 riders are still online—thirty percent of the district's total."

Wang Yuan, head of the marketing department, frowned deeply as he reported the figures one by one.

Compared to yesterday's order data, Mama Ali's market share in Xuhui District had plunged ninety percent, and even seventy percent of its delivery riders had fled.

For a moment, the atmosphere in the conference room sank to its lowest point.

Did Zhang Xuhao took off his black-framed glasses, lit a cigarette and took a deep drag; only when the smoke churned through his chest did his taut nerves relax just a little.

He looked at Kang Jia beside him and asked, "You're the head of logistics. Most of Xuhui District's riders have jumped ship to Kuaipao. What do you suggest we do?"

As one of Mama Ali's co-founders, Kang Jia was mainly in charge of merchant partnerships, ground-level expansion, and delivery operations.

In the project's early days, he delivered food by day and wrote code with Did Zhang Xuhao by night; among the riders who had fled Xuhui District were quite a few old partners who had hustled alongside him for three or four years.

But when faced with Kuaipao's generous offer—a 1,600-yuan monthly base salary, five social insurances and one housing fund, accident insurance, quarterly bonuses, and bad-weather subsidies—those people wavered in an instant.

In a single afternoon, over sixty of them had left; the remaining twenty or so were merely waiting to see what Mama Ali's headquarters would do.

"There's only one way out—raise their pay. Otherwise, the markets we've worked so hard to build in Yang Pu, Hongkou, Jing'an, and Xuhui will be snatched away by Kuaipao in less than two weeks."

Kang Jia spread his hands and said helplessly.

Deng Ye, who oversaw administration and finance, spoke up at the right moment: "Given Mama Ali's current order volume, if we bring rider pay up to par with Kuaipao's, the logistics department's monthly labor costs alone will rise by an extra thirty percent."

"Whatever Kuaipao has, Mama Ali must have too! Kang Jia, notify the heads of every rider station: starting in February, every Mama Ali delivery rider will be enrolled in the five social insurances, the housing fund, and accident insurance."

After a long pause, Did Zhang Xuhao suddenly stood up and ordered Kang Jia.

He knew that without swift action, within a week every Mama Ali rider would jump ship to Kuaipao.

"I'll draft a brand-new labor contract as soon as I can."

Deng Ye nodded; seeing that Did Zhang Xuhao had made up his mind, he replied at once.

"No problem. I'll make the calls right away and stabilize the rider team's morale first."

Kang Jia gave a slight nod.

The first clash between Kuaipao and Mama Ali ended in Mama Ali's total defeat.

At the same time.

News of the two delivery platforms fighting over customers was picked up and reposted by self-media bloggers, and quickly shot into the top twenty of the trending searches.

"Envy the netizens in Hucheng—order a free milk tea on Mama Ali in the morning, a free fried chicken cutlet on Kuaipao in the afternoon. What a comfy life!"

"@KuaipaoDelivery @Chen Yansen Jin Ling, when is Kuaipao Delivery launching? I can't wait any longer!"

"Sure, Mama Ali is a local Hucheng company, but to be fair, when it comes to service quality, Kuaipao is still better!"

"Kuaipao's CEO is also a Hucheng local. Besides, when I order takeout, am I supposed to check the boss's household registration too?"

"First time ordering from Kuaipao Delivery. The rider called to say my food had been stolen, but thankfully the platform gave me a 12-yuan no-threshold red packet as compensation."

Netizens gathered in the comments section, chattering away.

Locals from Hucheng made up the bulk of them. Their feedback was scattered, but most users who had ordered from Kuaipao Delivery shared one common impression: timely delivery, riders in neat uniforms, smiles on their faces, polite speech.

This prompted Hucheng netizens who needed takeout but had never downloaded Kuaipao to flock to Sister Chengzi App Shangcheng, Wandoujia, and App Treasure, search for "Kuaipao," and install it to try out.

An hour later, more comments from Hucheng netizens flooded Weibo.

"Mama Ali's delivery speed is really bad. Normally I only dare order milk tea and braised snacks—I'd never dare order hot meals or hot soup, because they always arrive cold. This Kuaipao is completely different—it got here in under half an hour."

"The app's homepage has a written promise: delivery within 29 minutes after the merchant hands over the food. When it comes to speed, Mama Ali really should take a page from Kuaipao."

"Learn? How would they learn? I chatted with a Kuaipao delivery Xiong Xiaoge today. They get a base salary, five social insurances and one housing fund, quarterly bonuses, and the e-bike, uniform, helmet, and delivery box are all provided free by the company. Guaranteed monthly pay of seven or eight thousand."

"How much? Seven or eight thousand? Bro upstairs, can you delete that comment? I've got a buddy who saw it and he's feeling a bit sick about it."

In 2012 Hucheng, many fresh graduates from vocational colleges and bottom-tier universities couldn't even get a starting salary of 4,000 yuan at their first job.

Just as the internet buzzed on.

Pei Yi, Kou Zhen, and others were also in their offices, staring at that day's real-time data.

"21,000 orders! Sales of 679,000 yuan! Hucheng really delivers—the average order value is way higher than Luzhou's."

Kou Zhen said with a smile.

"The first step went smoother than I imagined. Good thing we had the brothers from Yunsu backing us up—otherwise order jams and order spikes would have driven away merchants and users alike."

Pei Yi leaned against the desk and replied.

"Over sixty Mama Ali riders in Xuhui District have already joined Kuaipao. Tomorrow's delivery pressure will be greatly eased."

Kou Zhen chuckled.

He hadn't expected that even before Kuaipao started pushing hard on the merchant and user fronts, it had already broken apart Mama Ali's rider team.

Put plainly, even if Mama Ali had orders in Xuhui District tomorrow, there'd barely be any riders to deliver them.

"It's not that easy to crush Mama Ali. Did Zhang Xuhao is a Jiaotong University man after all. Before, the company was small and just lacked funding. Now that it's taken 50 million yuan from Mama Ali, you can bet tomorrow it'll make major adjustments to rider compensation."

Pei Yi shook his head—he wasn't nearly as optimistic as Kou Zhen.

"President Pei, you mean Mama Ali will also give riders a base salary and buy the five social insurances and housing fund?"

Kou Zhen reined in his smile and asked instinctively.

"As long as he isn't a fool, he'll definitely do it! So whether we win this fight still depends on real strength."

Pei Yi analyzed calmly.

Efficient delivery algorithms, a stable order system, massive merchant resources, and strong execution—those are the core of Kuaipao's success.

From the user's perspective, the first thing is affordability, the second is fast delivery. Nail those two, and Kuaipao would have a hard time losing.

As for traffic, Pei Yi didn't need to worry at all.

For one, there was Pinxie and Sister Chengzi App Shangcheng; for another, there was Penguin.

Meanwhile, on the other side.

Chen Yansen opened 360 Shangcheng, searched for Haier W910, and entered the product page.

The pre-sale inventory was 10,000 units, but unbelievably, from morning until eight in the evening, only 926 units had been sold.

"Pretty much what I guessed. Zhou Hongyi really does treat users like fools. If he'd partnered with Huawei or ZTE, there might still be a chance of success, but he just had to pick Haier."

Chen Yansen let out a snort of laughter and couldn't help but roast him.

360 co-branding with Haier to sell phones — what's the difference between that and Gree making phones?

In fact, Lei Yi was also keeping an eye on the sales of the Haier w910 at this time, but upon learning that sales hadn't even broken 1,000 units in a whole day, he breathed a sigh of relief, a cold smirk creeping across his face.

Faced with such dismal sales, Haier was dumbfounded, and so was Zhou Hongyi.

Where did 360's four hundred million users go?

Zhou Hongyi couldn't figure this out. He opened Weibo, found the promotional ad for the Haier w910, and tapped into the comments section.

"Live sales of 926 units — seriously, are there really fools who bought it?"

"Qualcomm 8260A dual-core 1.5G processor, 4.5-inch HD retina screen, supports 1080p video recording, 1GB RAM, 8GB ROM storage, only 1,888 yuan — feels like a steal!"

"Haier phone — just hearing the name doesn't sound reliable. If it were Huawei, ZTE, Oppo, or Sister Chengzi, I might actually consider it."

"Anyway, I wouldn't dare buy it. What if they stuff a 500MB ad app into the phone later that you can't even uninstall?"

Zhou Hongyi casually scrolled through a few comments and immediately flew into a rage, cursing up a storm.

What's wrong with Haier phones?

At least they're better than Xiaomi and Sister Chengzi phones, right?

All of them are idiots!

Zhou Hongyi was so angry his liver ached. In his view, when Xiaomi and Sister Chengzi phones launched, they had neither brand recognition nor a complete offline after-sales network.

Haier's main business is home appliances, but in terms of brand influence, is it really worse than Xiaomi and Sister Chengzi?

Zhou Hongyi was extremely unconvinced. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted two more comments: "Xiaomi phones sell for 1,999 yuan, claiming only a 5% gross margin. The Haier w910 sells for 1,888 yuan with almost the same specs — did they cut corners?"

"Just came from Lei Zong's comments section. Turns out the Haier w910 cut corners on the battery, camera, and screen. Especially the screen supplier — they also supplied to Big Banana last year, and the black-screen rate is extremely high."

Lei Zong?

Lei Yi?

Zhou Hongyi had always had a fiery temper. He didn't even take Shencheng Ma seriously, let alone Lei Yi, whose net worth was less than his own.

Thinking of this, he tapped into Lei Yi's Weibo profile and quickly found a comment in the first Weibo's comments section that dug up his background.

It seemed to be an objective statement of facts, but appearing in Lei Yi's comments section made Zhou Hongyi narrow his eyes and overthink it.

Maybe the Haier w910 hadn't met expectations, or maybe he felt Lei Yi had hired people to deliberately smear him.

Zhou Hongyi snorted coldly and immediately posted a sarcastic Weibo.

The gist was: don't treat users like fools. A certain brand's phone has poor performance, overheats, lags terribly, and yet sells for more than the Haier w910.

Although no names were mentioned, netizens often teased Xiaomi phones: "You can fry eggs with a Xiaomi," "Looking forward to the winter warming effect," "Born to overheat? The phone is about to burn out."

At a glance, this was clearly cursing Xiaomi!

After seeing Zhou Hongyi's Weibo, netizens immediately loved the drama and went wild tagging Lei Yi — every single one of them was an expert at fanning the flames.

Prompted by Li Wanqiang, Lei Yi logged into Weibo, read through Zhou Hongyi's latest post, and immediately frowned, a bellyful of anger rising up.

You damn Zhou Hongyi!

Every day calling me "big bro" this and "big bro" that, treating me to meals, extracting tons of phone-manufacturing experience and plans from me, then turning around to make a special-supply phone!

Now that the Haier w910 isn't selling, you want to ride the traffic and deliberately smear Xiaomi's product quality.

Since things have come to a head, Lei Yi won't hold back any face for him either.

He directly called him out by name and mocked: "Can your phone's quality even be mentioned in the same breath as Xiaomi? Take a look at what kind of screen you're using!"

"I'm using a domestic screen, so what? Are you proud of using Japanese goods? Are domestic screens garbage? Don't forget, Sister Chengzi phones also use domestic screens."

Zhou Hongyi fired back online, passionately going on the offensive.

Just last year the two were sitting together, calling each other "bro" back and forth, the best of friends. Now, without a care, they began exposing each other's product flaws.

Zhou Hongyi's reply was also muddying the waters. The Sister Chengzi C2 uses a 260-yuan AMOLED screen — a high-end configuration by any global standard.

They're all domestic screens, but the gap between domestic screens is enormous.

Lei Yi was furious. He first published Xiaomi's procurement plan, confirming they had indeed purchased BOE domestic screens, then pointed out the quality differences between different suppliers.

The Big Pineapple phone, which used the same screen as the Haier w910, was dragged out by netizens and repeatedly beaten down.

Many users who had bought Big Pineapple phones said: "Whoever buys it will regret it — time will prove everything."

"Bought one for my wife. It went black after 13 days. After-sales sent me a new one, and that one went black in 3 days."

Zhou Hongyi and Lei Yi argued all the way until ten at night. When both sides finally paused, he took another look at the page sales — the original 926 units had dropped to 901, and a full 25 users had requested refunds!

Once people learned the Haier w910 had screen problems, who would still dare to place an order?

After all, 1,888 yuan isn't cheap. Either grit your teeth and go for the Sister Chengzi C2, or choose a Xiaomi phone.

After months of back-and-forth, they couldn't even sell 1,000 units on launch day. From now on, which phone manufacturer would dare partner with 360 on a special-supply phone?

Old Zhou was dumbfounded and immediately blamed Lei Yi for everything.

Then he went all out, tearing through every fatal flaw of Xiaomi phones one by one.

This scene left industry insiders stunned, thinking: there's no such thing as a wrong name, only a wrong nickname — worthy of being the Red-Coated Cannon.

At eleven that night, Chen Nian of Vancl rushed over and furiously denounced the Haier w910 as garbage on Weibo.

"Boss Chen, last year Vancl aimed for 10 billion in sales. Let me ask you — can you hit even half of that next year?"

Zhou Hongyi went straight for Chen Nian's weak spot, leaving the man utterly furious.

The first day of February was an absolute treat for netizens — they were eating melon all day long.

(End of this chapter)