Chapter 271: Flowers Bloom Inside the Wall, Fragrance Spills Outside—5 Days, 300,000 Units

On June 25, the Alexa smart speaker launched in the North American market.

Online sales channels primarily relied on Amazon and eBay; offline channels centered on Best Buy and Walmart.

Previously, Wang Teng had contacted several tech and digital influencers on YouTube and Facebook to create product review videos for Alexa.

Their follower counts weren't the highest, but their audience profiles were highly targeted, with strong influence among young viewers.

For example, MarquesBrownlee, who would later become the second-most-popular tech YouTuber with millions of followers, had only around 400, 00 followers at the time—but his Alexa smart speaker review video garnered 740, 00 views, over 50, 00 likes, and an engagement rate of 6. % within just three days.

In the video, Marques faced the camera and said: "Hey, what's up guys! Today I'm reviewing a speaker powered by an intelligent voice interaction engine—I'll reveal the development team at the end, so guess which tech company made it."

Comments rapidly scrolled by: "Google," "Amazon," "Microsoft," and other company names.

"Before using it, you need to download an app called Alexa from your app store—yes, its design inspiration comes from Star Trek."

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

Marques shook his head, effortlessly completing the setup.

Clearly, he had thoroughly studied the Alexa smart speaker's usage before filming.

"Alexa!" Marques called out into the air.

The smart speaker on the table glowed green, and a warm, enthusiastic voice emerged from the speaker: "Good morning, I'm Alexa, pleased to serve you."

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

The Alexa smart speaker, when connected to the internet, could instantly access music resources from Amazon Music and Spotify.

"Alright, I've found 'We Are Young' by fun. please enjoy!"

Three seconds later, Alexa replied.

From receiving Marques's voice command, using its speech recognition system to convert analog audio signals from the microphone into digital signals, processing them through the TI OMAP3630 chip, then calling the music platform's API interface to execute playback.

As the music began to play, comments flooded the screen: "Oh my god," "Oh my goodness," and "amazing."

In reality, the direction of the comments and reviews had been subtly guided by Wang Teng behind the scenes.

Afterwards, Marques used the Alexa smart speaker to check weather and traffic, set alarms, reminders, and to-do lists, and added items to his Amazon shopping list and placed orders—all via voice commands.

The audience was stunned!

After all, in 2012, the Lamp Nation had Siri, but it could only perform simple tasks like making calls, booking restaurants, or sending texts.

Its speech recognition success rate was low—if you told it to play "Jay Chou's songs," it might interpret it as "Zhou Jie's songs."

Its noise-canceling technology was poor; in noisy environments, it couldn't accurately recognize voice commands.

Its multi-turn dialogue capability was weak: if you asked it which restaurant in New York was the best, Siri could answer normally, but if you followed up by asking what its signature dish was, Siri would just stare blankly.

It had zero memory of prior questions!

It was called an intelligent voice assistant, but it was no different from a retard.

In 2011, Google had also launched a voice search feature, but its underlying core principle was merely speech recognition.

In natural language processing, speech synthesis, and algorithmic models, it was still tens of thousands of miles behind the Alexa smart speaker.

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

*Click!

The light turned off immediately!

"Alexa, turn on the light!" Marques smiled and gave the next order.

For this test video, he had specifically replaced the room's bulbs with Philips Hue smart bulbs, added them to Alexa's device list, and enabled voice control.

"I heard Alexa's manufacturer is actively expanding compatible smart home devices—I'm sure it won't be long before you can control every appliance in your house with Alexa."

"TVs, air conditioners, refrigerators, stoves, dishwashers—even curtains and robotic vacuum cleaners—science fiction has become reality. This is a cool artificial intelligence product."

Marques dropped his smile and spoke seriously.

He paused, then added: "Actually, playing music, setting alarms, sending texts, booking restaurants—these are just basic functions. Alexa's true core is its intelligent interaction experience."

"Alexa, I'm going swimming at 3 p. ."

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

"No, recommend a restaurant—I want chicken pizza for lunch."

"Pizza Hut's chicken pizza has rich sauce and a unique flavor—it's 3. kilometers from your address."

"Send me the location…"

Marques and the Alexa smart speaker exchanged questions and answers, chatting from nearby pizza places to pretty girls in New York, from trending YouTube videos to the upcoming fall election.

Alexa's responses were natural and fluid, expressed with strong emotional nuance, and accurately understood complex sentence structures, contextual relationships, and multi-turn dialogue logic.

Of course, Alexa's response speed was still slow—typically 2–3 seconds—mainly limited by chip processing power, memory capacity, computational allocation, and speech recognition model efficiency.

But in 2012, the Alexa smart speaker's performance still won over ordinary users in the Lamp Nation.

Finally, Marques asked seriously: "Will you destroy humanity?"

The video ended abruptly!

Viewers felt their scalps tingle, as if shocked!

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

Orange Technology?

An unknown manufacturer!

But to viewers, Marques's recommendations were always rigorous and professional—even if Alexa were a pile of crap, someone would still want to try it.

That was the power of influencer bloggers.

Similar review videos appeared on YouTube and Facebook—some went viral, others went unnoticed—but after seven or eight days of fermentation…

Whether in tech circles or digital circles, Alexa's name grew louder and louder.

After all, with the tagline "The world's first artificial intelligence speaker," it was impossible not to go viral.

Moreover, Wang Teng hadn't skimped on marketing—he didn't just hire overseas influencers to promote it, but also ran image and video ads on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Google, and Hulu.

On day one, overseas sales reached 19, 00 units!

On day two, overseas sales reached 32, 00 units!

On day three, overseas sales reached 54, 00 units!

Until Justin Bieber posted a photo on Facebook that accidentally showed an Alexa smart speaker—though only half visible—it was spotted by sharp-eyed netizens.

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

On day four, overseas sales reached 87, 00 units!

There was no way around it—in 2012, Justin Bieber's popularity in North America was at its peak: over 43 million followers on Facebook, over 24 million on Twitter, and over 2. billion YouTube video views.

"You got Justin Bieber? Why wasn't this expense listed in the promotion plan?"

Chen Yansen asked Wang Teng during the meeting.

"Boss, it's pure coincidence! I didn't have extra budget to hire celebrities."

Wang Teng chuckled inwardly: My luck is really good.

Free promotion is so damn satisfying!

As for celebrity endorsements?

Neither Wang Teng nor Chen Yansen had ever considered it.

No other reason—it was simply too low in cost-effectiveness. Plus, the Alexa smart speaker had high material costs and low margins; it wasn't a high-margin luxury or cosmetic product, so online and offline sales channels were sufficient.

"Eleven days since launch in the domestic market: total sales of 89, 00 units. Four days since launch overseas: total sales of 192, 00 units. This is truly 'flowers bloom inside the wall, fragrance spills outside.'"

Chen Yansen smiled faintly, scanning the report.

Global cumulative sales: 281, 00 units!

Total revenue: 320 million!

Compared to the sales figures of Orange C2 and Orange D2, there was still a gap—but in Chen Yansen's eyes, the Alexa smart speaker had already exceeded his expectations.

The overseas market was less price-sensitive and more accepting of Alexa.

"Did you secure Paramount?" Chen Yansen then turned to Ye Qiuping.

"Royalty rate is 8%. Sales channels are concentrated on Paramount's official store, cinema counters, authorized retailers, and theme park shops—we expect inventory to be ready by early July."

Ye Qiuping nodded.

Zhou Chuangxi, Daniel, Yan Peng, and others exhaled in relief, their faces lighting up with joy.

From system development to hardware design to market launch, the Alexa smart speaker had consumed nearly one billion in human, material, and financial resources.

Just the large server cluster deployed in the AI lab, including supporting infrastructure and maintenance, had cost 400 million.

In addition, there were over 200 R&D engineers and heavy hardware investments in deep algorithm training.

If market response had been mediocre, even engineers like Zhou Chuangxi and Daniel might not have accepted it—let alone Chen Yansen.

Good food never comes too late!

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

Chen Yansen thought to himself.

After the Alexa smart speaker exploded overseas, some business-savvy individuals immediately sent its appearance, feature descriptions, and component teardown diagrams to domestic factories, planning to clone it 1: .

But domestic hardware designers grew increasingly suspicious, then suddenly realized: this was just the 'Mos Smart Speaker'!

The two products were identical in every way except for the name and application ecosystem.

In the end, Alexa and the Mos Smart Speaker were the exact same product.

Upon learning this, the "copycats" were stunned—once they understood the core of the smart speaker was its built-in voice assistant, they reluctantly abandoned their plagiarism plans.

Hardware was easy to replicate, but the intelligent voice system? Impossible.

"Amazing! Four days, 40 million U. . dollars—Mos Smart Speaker hits overseas markets with fame and fortune!"

"World's first AI speaker, Justin's same model, won millions of fans overseas!"

"The black tech product the man brought back from Lamp Tower Country turned out to originate in Shencheng?"

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

Mos Smart Speaker's total online sales had already dropped to just over five thousand units per day, but amid massive hype on self-media platforms, sales surged against the odds, reaching 47, 00 units in a single day.

Even surpassing its first-day sales during the 618 launch!

In the North American market, it broke the unprecedented record of ten million units sold in a single day.

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

Domestic companies Kuaishou, Baidu, and Xiaomi were equally envious.

In just five days, overseas sales reached $60 million; though the sales pace would drop sharply afterward, over a year, including markets in Europe, America, Australia, and South America, sales would total at least $2 billion—how could anyone not be tempted?

Lei Yi immediately called Chen Yansen and asked tentatively: "Chen Zong, is Orange Tech willing to license its voice interaction engine technology patents?"

Why develop slowly when you can just take what's already been made?

"Lei Zong, what are you thinking? The intelligent voice interaction engine is Orange Tech's core patent—it's several orders of magnitude more important than AuroraOS." Chen Yansen refused outright.

"Haha, just asking out of curiosity, Chen Zong, don't take it personally. The date for the 11th Internet Conference has been set—will you attend?"

Lei Yi chuckled awkwardly and quickly changed the subject.

"I'll probably go. But Lei Zong, I can't license the voice interaction engine patent to Xiaomi—but I can license the Yuxi Development Platform patent for Xiaomi's use."

Chen Yansen said with a smile.

A single company like Orange Tech couldn't reduce the costs of AI chips, computing power, and big data training alone. He could stay ahead on the software side, but in hardware, the technical components were too numerous and complex.

Only by driving the market with incentives could he make it grow.

It was like his approach in food delivery and ride-hailing—making money was the primary productive force.

"The Yuxi Development Platform?"

Lei Yi paused slightly—he hadn't expected such a sudden turn in just seconds.

Under Chen Yansen's explanation, he quickly understood the difference between the voice interaction engine and the Yuxi development tool: the former was a finished product, the latter a toolkit for production.

The Yuxi Development Platform included technical solutions for speech recognition, natural language processing, and speech synthesis; by simply feeding in voice and text data for algorithm training, or integrating with Baidu's search API, one could develop a voice interaction product similar to Alexa.

Lei Yi agreed without hesitation, and the two immediately began negotiating licensing fees.

Chen Yansen had already prepared his terms and listed them one by one.

After hearing the long list of fees, Lei Yi's face showed hesitation—he thought to himself: This is ridiculously harsh.

(End of Chapter)