Chapter 249: Chen Yansen Plays Dirty! Zhou Hongyi: I, Old Zhou

"Chen Zong, this is Zhou Hongyi. The collaboration we discussed last time—360 is all prepped."

This time Zhou Hongyi opened by identifying himself right away, sparing Chen Yansen another "Hello, who's calling?" that would have made things awkward for everyone.

"Zhou Zong, I know, I saved your number this time." Chen Yansen said with a teasing smile.

Zhou Hongyi was an impatient man—in just over two months, he'd already finished the prep work.

Even a fool could tell Old Zhou had cut corners again.

Sure enough, the moment Chen Yansen made some inquiries, he understood Zhou Hongyi's playbook: he'd applied for the 360 phone's trademark and sales permit, then contacted Yu Chengdong, leveraging Huawei's design team and supply chain to complete the industrial and hardware design for the new product.

"Zhou Zong, couldn't you just have Huawei handle the contract manufacturing?" Chen Yansen asked, puzzled.

Zhou Hongyi had made up his mind this time—he was dead set on riding Sister Chengzi Tech's traffic.

"Chen Zong, isn't it because the Aurora OS 1.3 operating system is much better to use? The stock Android 4.0 system is terrible. Besides, I also need the patent licensing for Sister Chengzi Tech's battery management and fast-charging technology."

Zhou Hongyi got straight to the point, stating openly that he'd already coordinated with Yu Chengdong, and that this batch of phones' contract manufacturing order would be handed to Sister Chengzi Tech.

Hearing this, Chen Yansen rolled his eyes hard—he couldn't be bothered with such a small order volume.

Huawei has 10 million units of contract manufacturing orders a year, Xiaomi has 4–5 million units in scale, and what about 360?

The first batch of Haier W910 only produced 10,000 units; before the workers and production line had even finished breaking in, this batch of goods was already finished.

"What's the scale of the first order?" Chen Yansen couldn't help asking.

"Fifty thousand units." Zhou Hongyi said, brimming with confidence.

Doesn't that mean you're going to lose another 40–50 million yuan?

Chen Yansen muttered inwardly, but he didn't have the heart to ask out loud, afraid of hurting Zhou Hongyi's pride.

"Alright, Zhou Zong, send me the detailed phone specs first. Later I'll have Sister Chengzi Tech's legal department draft the patent licensing contract documents. Wishing 360 phones great sales in advance."

Chen Yansen didn't want to waste time on such a trivial matter, and hung up the phone once he finished speaking.

As a result, Zhou Hongyi sent the materials to his inbox in just one minute—clearly he'd been prepared long ago.

He downloaded the attachment, unpacked the zip file, which included schematics and PCB designs, a BOM list (specs, models, quantities, and other info for every component, including chips, resistors, capacitors, displays, cameras, batteries, and all other hardware components), hardware interface definition documents, antenna design materials, assembly diagrams, and exploded views.

What commission percentage did Zhou Hongyi give Huawei to be worth that level of effort?

Chen Yansen thought as he clicked open the exterior design drawings.

360 G800 Pro Shining—ultra-thin bezel design, equipped with a 4.3-inch high-resolution touchscreen, supporting GPS, WiFi, and Bluetooth, powered by an A9-architecture 1GHz dual-core CPU processor, 1GB+4GB memory configuration, 8-megapixel rear camera, with the three Android hard keys removed—a hundred-percent tribute to the Sister Chengzi phone.

He glanced at the bill of materials—the components were indeed much more solid than the Haier W910's. It seemed Old Zhou had clearly improved a lot after being burned once.

The price was only 1,299 yuan, and paired with the Aurora OS 1.3 operating system, it just might really sell like crazy, a few million units.

When it came to making phones, Zhou Hongyi undoubtedly had talent. He knew perfectly well—everyone's just an assembly plant, so don't put on airs in front of me.

Xiaomi said they only made 5% on hardware, so Zhou Hongyi simply announced that 360 phones wouldn't make a single cent on hardware.

Four years later, the 360 N4 phone sold 2 million units in three months, repeatedly selling out on JD. com, and even appearing at markups on third-party platforms.

This showed that 360 phones really didn't have much hardware profit.

Later, Accountant Jia, who fled to the Lighthouse Country, had a marketing approach identical to Old Zhou's.

Others sell phones, but these two—one sold ecosystem device terminals to promote his own LeTV video, LeTV app store, and LeTV game center; the other sold ad machines, wanting to monetize through traffic.

They're not even on the same wavelength!

If Xiaomi is the disruptor of the phone industry, then these two are pure shit-stirrers.

It wasn't until 2017 that Zhou Hongyi realized the path of internet value-added services wouldn't work—he had to return to the essence of business, making not only hardware profit but also software profit.

But once the 360 phone lost its cost-performance edge, it became a generic commodity, and then gradually faded away.

LeTV phones' sales hadn't even started declining before news came that the boss had fled. Paired with an unspeakably bad after-sales service, they and 360 both fell before the wave of the times.

Chen Yansen didn't care about any of this—just considered it taking on a contract manufacturing order. After all, he could still earn some hardware price difference from Zhou Hongyi—why not?

Without overthinking it, he forwarded the 360 G800 Pro Shining's detailed design materials straight to Cao Dahua.

After finishing his work, he looked up at the sky outside the window—it had long been pitch-black as ink, dim and lightless, and crisp frog croaks drifted from afar across the rapeseed fields.

Chen Yansen pushed open the door and went downstairs, sat in the driver's seat of the Ghost, and headed toward the east gate of Xu Yuan.

In early summer of April, scattered senior and junior schoolgirls walked along Xuelin Road in white shirts and short shorts, showing off their long, fair legs.

Summer is truly wonderful!

Reaching the intersection, Chen Yansen suddenly saw Tang Zhenzhe and Song Yang walking toward him arm in arm.

"Brother Zhe, looks like Brother Sen!"

"Drop the 'looks like'—besides Brother Sen's Rolls-Royce, is there a second one in our Xu Yuan?"

The two bantered back and forth as they ambled over.

"Brother Sen!" Tang Zhenzhe greeted him with a grin.

"Had dinner yet? Let's eat together! You two are paying." Chen Yansen answered his own question.

"The two of us are paying? No problem!" Song Yang agreed readily.

"Get in." Chen Yansen called out to the two of them.

Tang Zhenzhe and Song Yang scrambled into the car, Song Yang taking the passenger seat while Tang Zhenzhe crawled into the back row.

Chen Yansen turned the car around at the intersection and headed to the Shuangqing Restaurant that 8302 frequented most.

"Boss, any private rooms left?"

Song Yang pushed open the restaurant's main door and called out loudly.

"Yes, the Huangshan Room on the second floor." The boss looked up, recognized who it was, and replied with a smile.

Don't look down on Song Yang just because he's only a campus courier agent—his monthly income is no less than his.

The Shuangqing Restaurant boss usually addresses Song Yang as "Boss Song."

The three entered the private room, and Tang Zhenzhe, bringing up the rear, walked in carrying a dozen beers.

"How's business at the courier station lately?" Chen Yansen asked casually.

From small clues one discerns the larger trend; from the beginning one foresees the end.

The pickup and delivery volumes of the campus agent can also reflect Yun Su's current state of development.

"I'm earning more than when I was agenting for three courier companies before." Song Yang said with a grin.

Nonsense!

Previously, Song Yang was agenting for small couriers like Yunda, Guofeng, and Huitong. Back then, if not for the pickup business from Fox Tao holding things up, Song Yang might not even have made it to summer break and graduation season.

Chen Yansen gave a slight nod and took the beer Tang Zhenzhe handed him.

"Next semester's telecom campus card business still falls to you two. The commission split stays the same old rule, but this time there's a new change—several contract phone sales targets have been added, like the 299-yuan Sister Chengzi d1 and the 999-yuan Sister Chengzi c2."

Chen Yansen raised his glass, took a sip, and said.

Song Yang glanced at Tang Zhenzhe. Seeing the other give an almost imperceptible nod, he replied, "Sen-ge, we don't want the commission on contract phones, just the sales commission on the phone cards."

"Sen-ge, same here." Tang Zhenzhe chimed in agreement.

"You two can refuse, but don't cut off the earning opportunities for the second-tier agents below. Plenty of work-study students are counting on the commission income from these two days to get by."

Chen Yansen said lightly.

Tang Zhenzhe caught Chen Yansen's unspoken meaning, tugged Song Yang, and said with a smile, "We'll follow Sen-ge's arrangement."

"That's more like it."

Chen Yansen raised his glass and clinked it against theirs, draining it in one go.

……

……

Four days later, the day before the 418 Home Appliance Festival big promotion.

What platforms like Jingdong, Suning, and Gome didn't expect was that Given Pinbei actually kicked off the big promotion early at noon on April 17, catching everyone off guard.

Even users were wondering whether Given Pinbei's operations staff had set the wrong activity time, but the start time on the promotional poster couldn't be wrong.

"Given Pinbei did it on purpose!"

Liu Qiangdong was speechless upon receiving the news. Everyone had agreed to start the price war on the 418th, jointly hyping up the buzz.

After all, once money is lost, one might as well cash in on a wave of traffic.

But Given Pinbei and Chen Yansen have no sense of fair play—they launched a sneak attack!

Should Jingdong follow suit?

Liu Qiangdong sank into deep thought, momentarily caught in a dilemma. Starting early would easily disrupt the promotion's rollout pace, and besides, some work wasn't ready yet. Ignoring it meant letting Given Pinbei take the first spoils and enjoy the 418 traffic fruits ahead of time.

"Holy crap! This kid is really shameless!"

Suning's Zhang Jindong, in much the same mood as Liu Qiangdong, burst out cursing.

Dangdang's Li Guoqing and Gome's online business head Han Pengde were both dumbfounded—it was the first time they'd run into an opponent who refused to play by the rules.

Only, the collective target of Zhang Jindong, Li Guoqing, and Han Pengde was Liu Qiangdong. As long as Jingdong didn't move, they wouldn't either.

Suning and Gome, as giants of the offline chain home appliance industry, had to take down Jingdong if they wanted to make a mark in online channels.

And Jingdong, wanting to become the online king of 3C digital and large home appliance categories, also had to beat Suning and Gome.

Therefore, this 418 Home Appliance Festival might look like six e-commerce platforms joining the fight, but in reality only three are the real players.

Dangdang was purely there to cause trouble and disgust Liu Qiangdong on the side.

Yixun was small in scale; its slogans were loud, but in users' eyes it was just there to make up the numbers.

Only Given Pinbei's move gave Jingdong, Suning, and Gome a real shock—this guy wants to steal the spotlight!

At this point, even Mama Ali, serving as an observer, sensed something was off.

Given Pinbei had prepared extremely thoroughly. For TVs, air conditioners, range hoods and stoves, washing machines, refrigerators, digital cameras, computers, and phones, each had its own flagship promoted products.

Take the Sony LCD TV KDL-46HX850: Jingdong sold it for 9,098 yuan, Suning for 9,099 yuan, Gome for 8,999 yuan, while Given Pinbei sold it for 8,998 yuan.

The lowest price online—one yuan cheaper than Gome!

The Apple iPad 2: Jingdong sold it for 2,988 yuan, Suning for 2,888 yuan, Gome for 2,888 yuan, Given Pinbei only 2,868 yuan.

The benefit of starting half a day early was being able to lock in users' shopping demand ahead of time.

That evening at 18:00, Jingdong announced the 418 big promotion would start early, with sales officially opening at 20:00.

Gome, Suning, Yixun, and Dangdang quickly followed, moving their promotion start times up by four hours.

Through Fox Tao's price comparison plugin, Mama Ali put the flagship product prices from major platforms into a single table for comparison.

But what greatly infuriated Liu Qiangdong was that Fox Tao deliberately picked the items Jingdong sold expensively and compared them with the same products from Gome, Suning, and Given Pinbei.

The implication: Jingdong only knows how to shout slogans—when it comes to real deals, Gome, Suning, and Given Pinbei are still the strongest.

"Brothers in marketing, find me ten of Jingdong's cheapest items ASAP and post them on Weibo."

Liu Qiangdong ordered his subordinates.

The 418 price war kicked off early!

Fox Tao members received a group message: everyone works overtime tonight, 'live-streaming' the whole thing, and announced the distribution of 500 million yuan in 'spectator red packets'—fanning the flames on one side while ruthlessly riding the traffic wave on the other.

The same washing machine, originally the lowest price online at 2,399 yuan, after a chaotic melee some users actually got it for only 1,300 yuan.

By one in the morning, Given Pinbei's large home appliance sales output had easily crossed the 300 million yuan mark!

Liu Qiangdong's face was grim. In the four hours before and after, Jingdong's large home appliance output was only 170 million yuan.

Yet losses in other categories reached as high as 40 million yuan!

He didn't know Suning and Gome's sales situation, but figured neither would surpass Given Pinbei.

The traffic he had worked so hard to hype up had been snatched away by Given Pinbei. Furious, he cursed out every single relative of Chen Yansen.

He regretted it deeply!

He never should have pulled Given Pinbei into the battle!

Faced with this passive situation, Liu Qiangdong could only grit his teeth and tough it out.

At the same time.

The price investigators stationed across the country had already geared up and were ready to set out, planning to wait for dawn and then station themselves outside the brick-and-mortar stores of Suning and Gome, determined to take this battle from online to offline!

(End of chapter)