Chapter 266: 4 Hours, 10.6 Billion! Li Yanhong: Keep Fighting!

"Hundreds of kilometers in a single order completed in one minute — ride-hailing platform fleeced of tens of millions!"

"Didi Taxi fleeced by wool-pullers; ride-hailing drivers use virtual order-running software to defraud subsidies of over 20 million!"

"Didi Taxi exposed for safety hazards — can users' phone numbers, home addresses, and other private information be protected?"

The three highest-click-through reports — the first two were still poking fun at the loopholes in Didi Taxi's risk control, while the third went straight to the heart of the matter, reasonably suspecting that user privacy could not be guaranteed on the Didi platform.

In no time, Didi Taxi's downloads plummeted and its public reputation took a heavy hit.

But in the eyes of those in the gray industry, Didi Taxi looked like a juicy piece of meat.

"Didn't notice it before, but now I know — some people in May and June pulled several million out of Didi Taxi. The money is too easy to make; no one wouldn't be tempted."

Cheng Wei had thought that reporting to the police and catching the culprits would deter the wool-pullers.

But what he hadn't expected was that more and more people had set their sights on Didi Taxi's big subsidy cake.

Meanwhile, Brother Hui and his crew, who had fled all the way to Shencheng, discovered that their skills couldn't break through Didi Taxi's security defenses, so they secretly recruited programmers locally and continued searching for technical loopholes in Didi Taxi.

Once you've made easy money, who'd still be willing to work honestly?

Kuaidi Taxi couldn't escape the disaster either — every day, countless hackers tried to bypass authorization access, SQL injection, and other paths, and there were also large numbers of drivers using virtual location software.

But these people often had their trip just begin, only to receive an account-ban notification the next second.

Kuaidi Taxi's anti-cheating system was far more powerful than the outside world had imagined.

Thus, Didi Taxi became the prime target.

Behind the scenes, over 10% of Didi Taxi's subsidy funds still fell into the hands of gray-industry operators every day.

On June 16, Kuaidi Taxi entered Changshan City, Beihe Province.

Cheng Weixing's move was tantamount to a public declaration that Kuaidi Taxi was officially kicking off the battle for the northern ride-hailing market.

The next day, Cheng Wei transferred a batch of Didi's backbone staff to rush to Changshan.

The scope of the two companies' fight instantly spread from Yanjing to Beihe.

"Waited for the stars, waited for the moon — finally a free ride-hailing app is here!"

"So this is the perk of being neighbors with the capital's big shots?"

"Both Kuaidi and Didi Taxi are downloaded. Sitting around waiting for free commutes — I don't even fancy taking the bus anymore, hahaha!"

Netizens in Changshan City flooded the comment section with messages.

Some even posted in the local forum, sharing with pictures and text the whole process of downloading Kuaidi/Didi Taxi, binding Sister Chengzi Pay/Zhifu Bao, entering the start and destination, initiating a ride, and completing payment.

Changshan City's taxi drivers didn't even need promotion steps — on the first day Kuaidi Taxi moved in, driver-side downloads reached 1,700; Didi Taxi had 1,100.

Everyone was waiting to make money!

On the eve of the 618 e-commerce mega-sale, the ride-hailing war was about to get even more exciting.

Kuaidi Taxi burned through more than 6 million in promotion costs every day, Didi Taxi over 3 million — together, 10 million.

The key point was that the two platforms' overlapping business cities numbered only two.

Wait until there are twenty, two hundred cities — wouldn't that burn several billion a day?

Kuaidi Taxi's investors — including Penguin, Mama Ali, DST, Huake, and Jin Sha Ventures — could no longer sit still. They had money, sure, but they couldn't bear this style of play either.

One month is fine, two months is okay, but if the burning keeps going, no one can bear it!

Liu Zhiping was the first to call and ask: "President Chen, I think we should pause. Over 300 million in promotion costs a month — how can you expect Penguin to dare keep investing?"

"President Liu, I know a money-losing business can't be done, but the ride-hailing market is too small. If we don't throw money at cultivating user habits, the cake won't grow. You should be glad that Baidu, Gao Ling, and Haina Asia are helping us burn money together."

Chen Yansen said with a light smile, sitting in the office of Building Eight.

Glad?

Liu Zhiping, barely holding back the urge to curse, patiently advised: "How about we let Zhang Lei step in and invite Li Yanhong and Cheng Wei to sit down and talk?"

Gao Ling Capital's Zhang Lei had invested in both Kuaipao and Didi Taxi — letting him be the middleman was the most fitting choice.

"Sure, I don't mind." Chen Yansen agreed readily.

In May and June combined, Baidu invested a total of 130 million Huayuan, yet Cheng Wei hadn't even spent half of it — daily average orders were less than 300,000.

Chen Yansen didn't believe that Baidu, at the height of its power, would easily admit defeat.

Sure enough, when Zhang Lei approached Li Yanhong, he was refused after barely two sentences, with just one line: "Keep fighting!"

In Li Yanhong's view, one had to hold at least half the market share before negotiations could begin.

Baidu refused peace talks; Haina Asia and Today Capital were also hawks, believing the ride-hailing market battle was still in its early stages, and who would win or lose in the future remained unknown.

Kuaidi Taxi was only temporarily gaining the upper hand.

If one chose compromise and peace talks because of momentary competitive pressure, it would undoubtedly mean giving up the chance to stand alone at the top and reap enormous profits.

Fortune favors the bold!

Cheng Wei, Baidu, Haina, and Today Capital — none were willing to admit defeat.

There are 28 first- and second-tier cities in the country, and seventy or eighty third- and fourth-tier cities.

Didi and Kuaidi Taxi hadn't even chewed through one-tenth of the market — talking about negotiations at this point was premature.

Liu Zhiping, Zhang Lei, and others had no choice but to keep fighting alongside Chen Yansen.

From the investors' rational perspective, the two merging into one and reducing internal friction was the plan that best served everyone's interests.

But who gets to eat the bigger piece of this cake?

Chen Yansen wanted to eat, Penguin wanted to eat, Baidu wanted to eat, and Cheng Wei wanted to eat too.

Therefore, Zhang Lei's suggestion naturally went unheeded.

……

……

Xucheng, Zhuxianzhuang Tech Park, Building Eight.

The night was deep, yet inside and outside the building was a scene ablaze with lights and buzzing with voices.

The launch time for Pinxue 618's big promotion is set for June 17th at 8 PM.

"Who's the merchant in charge of Shaobei rice? Tell operations to restock right now! No stock on hand? Put it up for pre-sale!"

"Xiaomi Mi2 is out of stock! Use the 360g800pro Radiant to fill in!"

"Midea air circulation fan — JD only sells it for 269 yuan, 27 yuan cheaper than ours. Take it offline! If the price can't be dropped to 268 yuan within ten minutes, kick it straight out of the big-promotion product pool."

"Sister Yuncheng, the Jianghuai Tongyue RS is completely out of stock across the North China region. Can you check and see if we can restock? Otherwise, we'll have to block it at the corresponding delivery locations!"

The office areas of the Merchant Operations Department and the Key Account Business Development Department were right next to each other, with constant noisy shouts ringing out.

In just two hours, over a hundred hundred-billion-subsidy items sold out completely.

The price of Sister Chengzi C1 dropped to 1,499 yuan for the first time — eleven months had already passed since its initial launch.

The Snapdragon MSM8260 dual-core processor, 1GB+8GB memory configuration, and 8-megapixel rear camera could still hold their own in the phone market.

117,000 units sold in two hours!

With its 799-yuan price tag, Sister Chengzi D1 went absolutely crazy in the low-end smartphone market, with total network-wide sales reaching 549,000 units.

The flagship Sister Chengzi C2 had equally stunning sales — with a 100-yuan price cut, cumulative network-wide sales hit 164,000 units.

'2012 really is the first year of the smartphone sales explosion.'

Chen Yansen commented lightly.

Compared to 2011, domestic smartphone shipments had more than doubled.

"Class monitor, the coach and hotel are all arranged. Each department's estimated end-of-shift time is between 12:30 and 1:30…"

Xu Xingxing walked over and reported the administrative department's arrangements in an orderly fashion.

About forty percent of Pinxue Mall's employees lived in Xushi city proper, so getting a cab home after working into the early hours was a real problem.

The company arranged for everyone to stay at city hotels, and the coach would bring them back to the tech park the next day.

Employees who didn't want to stay at a hotel could also choose to take a cab home — the company would cover the fare.

"1:30? Way too late! No need to tough it out at the office. Tell each department's head — anyone still at their workstation at 12:15, their entire department's Q2 quarterly bonus gets a ten-percent cut."

Chen Yansen said with a smile.

In reality, Pinxue's risk-control early warning, automatic restocking, algorithm ranking, and other product functions, backed by big-data technology, made it completely unnecessary to keep all employees around for overtime.

Each department just needed to leave two or three people on duty.

But Wang Zihao, Zhang Yifeng, Zhang Wenbo, Zhuang Rui and others kept insisting that pulling overtime for the big promotion was an old tradition of 'Fox Tao' that couldn't be given up lightly.

For rank-and-file employees, every Double 11, Double 12, and 618 promotion wasn't actually that tiring — the hardest part was the preparation beforehand.

The day before and the day of the big promotion, everyone was just eating and drinking. The ones who really had it rough were the administrative staff, every one of them run off their feet.

They had to arrange for the cafeteria chefs to make barbecue for everyone, pre-order hotpot, beer, fried chicken, braised snacks and the like, and finally sort out transportation and accommodation after work.

"Got it, class monitor!"

Xu Xingxing answered with a grin, took the task, and immediately ran off to notify everyone.

"Pssht!"

Chen Yansen popped open a can of beer, drinking as he walked, inspecting floor by floor from the first floor up.

In less than a year, Pinxue had grown from a dozen-odd people at the start to over 1,500 now.

Building 8, once more than half empty, now had over 200 employees on every floor.

"Brother Sen!"

"Brother Sen!"

"Boss!"

Chen Yansen walked unhurriedly to the Customer Department, where Meng Xibo, Zhu Xiaopeng and Fei Qiwen quickly stood up to greet him.

"There's barbecue downstairs — if you want some, go grab it yourself." Chen Yansen said with a faint smile, his tone easy and affable.

"I'll go in a bit." Fei Qiwen said with a smile.

Having worked for over a decade, Pinxue was the most comfortable company he'd ever been at. The backstabbing and infighting between departments was minimal, and although the boss was young, he didn't have a single one of those young entrepreneurs' arrogant, overbearing bad habits.

Generous base pay, plus social insurance and housing fund, housing allowance, meal allowance, transportation subsidy, quarterly bonus, and overtime pay — not a single one missing.

Even though the work was a bit grueling, it left people full of drive.

"Many customer complaints?" Chen Yansen asked again.

"Customer service visitor intake has increased sixfold, but the complaints are fairly scattered — within the normal threshold range." Meng Xibo replied.

"Good then." Chen Yansen smiled, didn't linger, and went upstairs to the Key Account Business Development Department.

At this hour, the business and operations folks were all gathered together, eating skewers and drinking beer. Whenever they ran into an out-of-stock item, they'd call the merchant to urge them to add inventory.

"Boss!" everyone greeted him in unison.

"Brother Sen! A toast to you!" Chi Kai from the food category's merchant operations mustered his courage and came over.

"I heard from Yifeng that your performance has been solid — keep it up." Chen Yansen said, patting him on the shoulder.

Privately, Zhang Yifeng had indeed mentioned to him that Chi Kai's business ability was rock-solid and could be given a promotion assessment opportunity.

Chen Yansen had the risk-control department look into it — during his time at Pinxue, Chi Kai had never once taken bribes or thrown his weight around with merchants.

Perhaps the earlier rumors weren't accurate, and Chi Kai's less-than-glorious track record at Yihaodian really might have been him taking the fall for his boss.

"Thanks for the praise, Brother Sen. Compared to Brother Feng, Boss Yuan, and Brother Hui, I'm still far behind." Chi Kai replied modestly. His words made Zhang Yifeng, Yuan Wei and Li Hui standing nearby all feel quite pleased.

Chen Yansen sat in the Merchant Operations Department, chatting casually with Zhang Yifeng and the others.

Pinxue's site-wide sales data scrolled across the big screen.

By the early hours of the morning, the final sales figure had frozen at 1.06 billion yuan.

(End of chapter)