Chapter 271: Flowers Bloom Inside the Wall, Fragrance Spreads Outside—300,000 Units in Five Days

On June 25, the Alexa smart speaker landed on the North American market.

Online sales channels were mainly Amazon and eBay, while offline sales channels were mainly Best Buy and Walmart.

Earlier, Wang Teng had contacted several tech and digital influencer bloggers on YouTube and Facebook to produce product review videos for Alexa.

Their follower counts weren't the highest, but their audience demographics were sufficiently niche, and their influence among younger viewers was also very strong.

Take Marques Brownlee, for example—the future YouTube tech reviewer who would rank second with tens of millions of subscribers—had only just over 400,000 followers at this time, but his Alexa smart speaker review video racked up 740,000 views in just three short days, with over 50,000 likes and an engagement rate as high as 6.8%.

In the video, Marques addressed the camera: "Hey, what's up guys! Today I'm reviewing a speaker product equipped with intelligent voice interaction engine technology for everyone. I'll reveal the R&D team behind this product at the end of the video—see if you can guess which tech company made it."

Company names like "Google," "Amazon," and "Microsoft" flashed rapidly across the comments.

"Before using it, we need to download an app called Alexa from the app store. That's right, its design inspiration comes from Star Trek."

"OK, after the installation is successful, first add a device in the app, select the device type as Alexa Smart Speaker, confirm the speaker has entered pairing mode, then enter the Wi-Fi password to complete the connection."

Marques shook his head, skillfully handling the setup.

It was obvious that he had thoroughly researched how to use the Alexa smart speaker before filming the video.

"Alexa!" Marques called out to the air.

"Good morning, I'm Alexa, delighted to serve you." The smart speaker on the desk glowed green, and a warm, full-bodied greeting came from the speaker.

"Play me a song called 'We Are Young.'" Marques demonstrated the music playback function first.

When connected to the internet, the Alexa smart speaker could instantly pull music resources from Amazon Music and Spotify.

"Alright, I've found fun.'s 'We Are Young' for you. Please enjoy!"

Three seconds later, Alexa replied.

From receiving Marques's voice command, it used the speech recognition system to convert the analog audio signal captured by the microphone into a digital signal, which was processed and analyzed by the TI OMAP 3630 chip, then called the music platform's API interface to execute the song playback operation.

As the music slowly began to play, a string of exclamations like "Oh my god," "Oh my goodness," and "amazing" floated across the comments.

In reality, the direction of both the comments and the review section had Wang Teng's fingerprints behind the scenes.

Afterwards, Marques used the Alexa smart speaker to check the weather and traffic conditions, set alarms, reminders, and to-do items, add items to his Amazon shopping cart and place orders via voice commands, and a series of other operations.

It left the audience greatly amazed!

You have to understand that although the Lighthouse Country in 2012 had the Siri voice assistant, it could only perform simple tasks like making phone calls, booking restaurants, or sending text messages.

The speech recognition success rate wasn't high—ask it to play "Jay Chou's songs," and it could interpret it as "Zhou Jie's songs."

The noise reduction technology was poor, and in noisy environments, it couldn't accurately recognize voice commands.

Its multi-turn dialogue capability was weak. For example, ask Siri which restaurant in New York is the tallest, and it could answer normally, but if you followed up by asking what that restaurant's signature dish was, Siri would be completely dumbfounded.

It simply had no memory function for previous questions!

It was called an intelligent voice assistant, but it was no different from being mentally disabled.

Google had also launched a voice search feature back in 2011, but the underlying core principle was merely speech recognition technology.

In terms of natural language processing, speech synthesis, and algorithm models, it was still miles apart from the Alexa smart speaker.

"Alexa, turn off the lights!" Marques suddenly pointed at the light bulb overhead and issued another command.

*Click*!

The light went out in response!

"Alexa, turn on the lights!" Marques said with a smile.

For this review video, he had specifically replaced the light bulbs in his room with Philips Hue smart bulbs. After adding them to Alexa's device list, they could be controlled by voice.

"I heard the manufacturer of Alexa is actively expanding the categories of smart home appliances it can connect to. I think it won't be long before we can use Alexa to control all the appliances in our homes."

"TVs, air conditioners, refrigerators, stoves, dishwashers, and even curtains and robot vacuums—science fiction movies have become reality. This is a very cool AI product."

Marques put away his smile and stated solemnly.

He paused, then added: "Actually, having Alexa play music, set alarms, send texts, and book restaurants are just its basic functions. Alexa's intelligent interactive experience is its true core."

"Alexa, I'm going swimming at three in the afternoon."

"Have you prepared your swimsuit, swim cap, and goggles? Would you like me to help you find pool information or set a schedule reminder?"

"No need. Recommend me a restaurant—I want chicken pizza for lunch."

"Pizza Hut's chicken pizza has rich sauce and a unique taste. It's 3.7 kilometers from your address."

"Send me the location info…"

Marques and the Alexa smart speaker went back and forth, chatting from nearby pizza places to pretty girls in New York, from YouTube trending videos to the second half of the year's election.

Alexa's responses were natural and fluid, its language expression highly emotional, and it could accurately parse user semantics in understanding complex sentence structures, contextual associations, and multi-turn dialogue logic.

Of course, Alexa's response speed still wasn't fast enough—generally 2-3 seconds—mainly limited by chip processing capability, memory capacity, computing power allocation, and the efficiency of the speech recognition model.

But in 2012, the Alexa smart speaker's performance still conquered ordinary users in the Lighthouse Country.

Finally, Marques asked with a serious expression: "Will you destroy humanity?"

The video content came to an abrupt halt!

It gave viewers chills down their spines, as if electrified!

At the end, Marques attached the product name and noted that in one week, this smart speaker would go on sale simultaneously on Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and eBay.

Orange Technology?

An unknown manufacturer!

But in the viewers' eyes, Marques's recommendations had always been rigorous and professional—even if the Alexa smart speaker were a pile of crap, people would still want to try it.

This was the power of influencer bloggers.

Similar review videos were plentiful on YouTube and Facebook—some made it to trending, others drew no attention at all—but after seven or eight days of fermenting.

Whether in the tech circle or the digital circle, Alexa's fame grew louder and louder.

After all, with the gimmick of being "the world's first AI speaker," it would have been hard not to blow up.

Moreover, Wang Teng hadn't been stingy with his marketing promotion either—not only had he enlisted overseas influencers to plant the seed, he had also placed image or video ads on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Google, and Hulu.

On the first day of launch, overseas total sales reached 19,000 units!

On the second day of launch, overseas total sales reached 32,000 units!

On the third day of launch, overseas total sales reached 54,000 units!

Until a photo Justin posted on Facebook accidentally revealed the presence of the Alexa smart speaker; though only half was visible, eagle-eyed netizens spotted it.

Sales of the same smart speaker as Justin's on Amazon instantly exploded!

On the fourth day of launch, overseas total sales reached 87,000 units!

No choice; in 2012, Justin's popularity in North America was at its peak, with over 43 million followers on Facebook, over 24 million on Twitter, and over 2.7 billion YouTube video views.

"You even got Justin Bieber? Why isn't this expense in the promotion plan?"

During the meeting, Chen Yansen looked at Wang Teng and asked.

"Boss, it was all coincidence! Where would I get extra promotion funds to hire a celebrity?"

Wang Teng chuckled, thinking to himself: My luck is really good.

Free-riding is freaking awesome!

As for hiring a celebrity endorser?

Neither Wang Teng nor Chen Yansen had considered it.

No other reason; mainly the cost-performance ratio was too low. Plus, the material costs of the Alexa smart speaker were high and the gross profit low; it wasn't a high-margin luxury good or cosmetic, so combining online and offline sales channels was sufficient.

"Domestic market: 11 days since launch, total sales 89,000 units; overseas market: 4 days since launch, total sales 192,000 units. This counts as blooming inside the wall but smelling outside."

Chen Yansen smiled faintly, his gaze sweeping over the report.

Global cumulative sales: 281,000 units!

Total sales revenue: 320 million!

Compared to the sales data of Sister Chengzi C2 and Sister Chengzi D2, there was still a certain gap, but in Chen Yansen's eyes, the Alexa smart speaker had long exceeded his expectations.

The overseas market was insensitive to price and had a relatively high acceptance of Alexa.

"Did Paramount get it sorted?" Shortly after, Chen Yansen turned his head and asked Ye Qiuping.

"Commission rate 8%; sales channels concentrated in the Paramount official Shangcheng, cinema counters, authorized retailers, and theme park stores. Stocking preparation is expected to be completed by early July."

Ye Qiuping nodded in agreement.

Zhou Chuangxi, Daniel, Yan Peng, and others couldn't help but sigh with relief, joy appearing on their faces.

From system R&D to hardware design, and then to launch and sales, the Alexa smart speaker consumed nearly one billion in manpower, material resources, and financial costs.

Just the large server cluster deployed in the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, including supporting and maintenance fees, swallowed up 400 million in funds.

Additionally, there was a R&D team of over 200 people, plus hardware investment in deep algorithm training.

If the market response had been mediocre, the R&D engineers, including Zhou Chuangxi and Daniel, would not have been able to accept it, let alone Chen Yansen.

Good food is not afraid of being late!

If the product's performance is solid, sales won't be low!

Chen Yansen thought silently.

After the Alexa smart speaker exploded in the overseas market, some people with keen business senses immediately sent the Alexa smart speaker's appearance, function descriptions, and parts disassembly diagrams to domestic factories, planning to replicate it one-to-one.

But the hardware designers at the domestic factories looked closer and closer, then suddenly realized: Isn't this the 'Mo Si Smart Speaker'!

Apart from the name and application ecosystem, the two products were identical in every other aspect.

After all this, it turned out Alexa and the Mo Si Smart Speaker were the same product.

Upon hearing this news, the 'pirate manufacturers' were completely baffled; after realizing the core of the smart speaker product was the built-in voice assistant, they helplessly gave up the idea of copying.

Hardware is easy to solve, but the intelligent voice system is impossible to crack.

"Awesome! 40 million USD in four days; the Mo Si Smart Speaker achieved both fame and fortune going overseas!"

"The world's first AI speaker, Justin's same model, gaining countless fans overseas!"

"A man brought back high-tech products from the Lighthouse Country; the place of origin is actually Shencheng?"

Perhaps because the Alexa smart speaker sold out on Amazon, or perhaps due to Justin's celebrity effect, on the last day of June.

Originally, the Mo Si Smart Speaker's total online sales had dropped to over 5,000 units per day, but under the intense hype by self-media, it actually surged against the wind, selling 47,000 units in one day.

It even exceeded the sales volume on the 618 launch day!

And in the North American market, it broke the single-day sales record of 100,000 units for the first time.

Chen Yansen matured the smart speaker market two years early; seeing this, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft all announced their entry into the smart speaker market.

Domestic iFLYTEK, Qian Du, and Xiaomi were equally envious.

In just five days, sales reached 60 million USD overseas. Although sales speed would drop significantly afterward, over a year, adding the European, American, Australian, and South American markets, the sales revenue would be at least 2 billion USD. Who wouldn't be tempted?

Lei Yi immediately called Chen Yansen and asked tentatively: "Mr. Chen, is the technical patent for Orange Technology's voice interaction engine licensed externally?"

R&D is so slow; where is the fun in eating ready-made?

"Mr. Lei, what are you thinking? The intelligent voice interaction engine is Orange Technology's core patent, several tiers more important than AuroraOS." Chen Yansen refused decisively.

"Haha, just asking casually, Mr. Chen, don't mind. The date for the 11th Internet Conference has been set; will Mr. Chen attend?"

Lei Yi smiled awkwardly and quickly changed the subject.

"I should go! But Mr. Lei, the technical patent for the intelligent voice interaction engine cannot be given to Xiaomi, but the patent for the Yuxi Development Platform can be licensed for Xiaomi to use."

Chen Yansen said with a smile.

Relying solely on Orange Technology alone, it would be hard to bring down the costs of AI chips, computing power, and big data training. He could stay ahead step by step at the software level, but in the hardware field, too many technical links were involved and too messy.

Therefore, only by driving with profit could the market be built up.

This was just like his approach in the food delivery and ride-hailing fields; making money was the primary productive force.

"Yuxi Development Platform?"

Lei Yi was slightly stunned; he hadn't expected a complete turnaround within seconds.

With Chen Yansen's explanation, he quickly figured out the difference between the voice interaction engine and the Yuxi development toolkit — the former was a finished product, the latter a production toolkit.

The Yuxi development platform included technical solutions such as speech recognition, natural language processing, and speech generation. By simply feeding in voice and text data for algorithm training, or connecting to Baidu's search API interface, one could develop a voice interaction product similar to Mo Si (Alexa).

Lei Yijun agreed without hesitation, and the two immediately began discussing the licensing fee.

Chen Yansen already had a plan in mind and quoted the established fee schedule to the other party one by one.

After hearing the long list of fee items, Lei Yijun's face showed hesitation, thinking to himself: This is way too damn harsh.

(End of chapter)