Chapter 337: 99-Point Subsidy Era! 4 Million Live Stream, Slash the Price!

On November 20, WeChat released version 4.5, adding real-time walkie-talkie, group voice chat, QR codes, and navigation functions, with Penguin Maps integrated into the WeChat ecosystem for the first time.

Meanwhile, after two months of development, Lashou.com successfully launched scan-to-pay and group-buy voucher verification features, following Meituan and Dazhong Dianping.

A brand-new era has begun!

The group-buying market landscape shifted dramatically: Dazhong Dianping and Meituan held the top two spots, while KuaiPao, after integrating Nuomi’s resources, surpassed Lashou.com in just three months to claim third place.

Lashou.com sank to the bottom.

According to a third-party data analysis report, the national group-buying market’s total transaction volume in October reached 4.6 billion yuan, with Dazhong Dianping at 1.14 billion, Meituan at 1.02 billion, KuaiPao at 930 million, and Lashou.com at 650 million.

When Baidu acquired Lashou.com, its monthly transaction volume was already over 600 million.

In other words, after Gong Zhenbing took over Lashou.com, he spent 60 million yuan on marketing over three months, yet the market share remained unchanged.

“Baidu is a technology-driven company; Li Yanhong and everyone else don’t understand management or business. Lashou.com and Didi Chuxing’s fates were sealed—they will lose for sure!”

Shan Jiawei, head of KuaiPao’s group-buying business, bluntly commented on Weibo.

Li Yanhong, proud of his status, refused to engage directly, but Gong Zhenbing had no such restraint and fired back: “Your group-buying business hasn’t even reached number one—stop pretending to be a big shot giving advice. And do you even qualify?”

“Better than plagiarism,” Shan Jiawei sneered.

Wang Xin of Meituan and Zhang Tao of Dazhong Dianping looked embarrassed—Shan Jiawei had just insulted them too.

But Meituan and Dazhong Dianping couldn’t refute it—they really had copied.

There was no choice: combining group-buying QR codes with scan-to-pay dramatically increased redemption speed by tenfold or more, benefiting users, merchants, and platforms alike—they had to copy.

Additionally, the film “Lost in Thailand,” starring Xu Zheng and Wang Baoqiang, began its promotional campaign.

After careful consideration, Pei Yi bet on this film, finalizing a ticket subsidy deal with Light Box Media at a 6:4 funding ratio, slashing the ticket price on KuaiPao to 9.9 yuan.

The promotion ran from December 6 to December 12!

From November 25 to December 5, users who ordered takeout or redeemed group-buying orders received one puzzle piece; collecting nine pieces allowed them to redeem a free 60-yuan movie voucher.

Instantly, KuaiPao’s daily active users and user engagement surged.

At Chen Yan’s instruction, Pei Yi proposed the “T-strategy”: treating group-buying as the horizontal line and takeout, movies, travel, local services, and other categories as vertical lines, forming a “T” shape.

Everything can be group-bought!

With assistance from Shan Jiawei, Zhang Xuhao, and others, Pei Yi expanded KuaiPao’s business footprint across every industry.

From food and entertainment to beauty and hair salons, massage and foot therapy, attraction tickets, hotels and homestays, tourism and vacations, to medical care and medicine, movies and performances, ride-hailing—categories were comprehensive and all-encompassing.

Meanwhile, Lashou.com and Dazhong Dianping focused only on food and entertainment, with limited categories and incomplete ecosystems.

Meituan had a slight edge, having expanded into movies, travel, and takeout—its business model posed the greatest threat to KuaiPao.

After reviewing the October industry report, Zhang Tao and Gong Zhenbing both resolved to accelerate expansion of their platforms’ boundaries and seek new profit growth points.

Online ticketing became the core lever for competing for market share, attracting users, increasing platform visibility, and boosting user retention.

Meituan partnered with Huayi Brothers, slashing the pre-sale price of “1942” to 9.9 yuan and allocating significant traffic resources.

Lashou.com chose “The Last Supper” as its deep partner, also pricing tickets at 9.9 yuan.

Dazhong Dianping’s subsidy strategy differed: Zhang Tao signed no exclusive agreements with any distributor or producer, adopting a neutral stance.

But due to insufficient subsidy funding, Dazhong Dianping had to cover the cost themselves—each 9.9-yuan movie ticket sold cost them 8 to 10 yuan more than KuaiPao, Meituan, or Lashou.com.

Movie ticket prices, which were as low as 19.9 yuan in the first half of the year, dropped to 9.9 yuan in the second half.

More and more people entered cinemas—box office revenues exploded!

…

…

Xucheng, Zhuxianzhuang Technology Park.

Chen Yan sat in his office, laying out a stack of movie tickets in a row, glancing quickly, then selecting two tickets for “Cold War” and two for “Jason Bourne 4,” tossing aside the “Tai Chi 2: Hero Rising” ticket Ye Qiuping had given him.

He knew Ye Qiuping’s body and personality intimately—he could never give this woman even a sliver of hope.

Want Chen Zong to take her to the movies? Not a chance!

Occasionally drinking two bowls of sweet soup, Chen Boss could barely tolerate it.

Now, the group-buying arena had only KuaiPao, Meituan, Dazhong Dianping, and Lashou.com left; beyond product experience and after-sales quality, new-user subsidies, returning-user discounts, and repurchase frequency were critical.

Internal strength must be solid; external tactics must not lag.

Pei Yi’s operational style grew increasingly steady—he had no shortage of legitimate tactics and could also play dirty with skill.

Chen Yan had zero concern for the development of takeout and group-buying; with Pei Yi, Shan Jiawei, and Zhang Xuhao in charge, even Zhang Tao and Gong Zhenbing couldn’t match them, let alone Wang Xin or Wang Huiwen.

Outside the window, autumn rain drizzled, a desolate scene.

With the hot sales of Orange phones, Alexa smart speakers, and power banks, plus offline channels from Orange Smart Life Halls and YunSu Express stations, and OEM orders from Xiaomi, 360, NetEase, and Huawei phones, Factory No. 4 in Lucheng had reached capacity.

After discussing with Cao Dahua and Cai Jingming in the morning meeting, he planned to purchase an industrial plot near Factory No. 4 this month and convert it into a production base in preparation for 2013.

In short, the workforce at the Orange phone factory would expand again, with an estimated addition of 20,000 jobs.

Tao Jingwen immediately patted his chest and said he’d handle all procedures and policy issues, guaranteeing the new production line at the Lucheng factory would be operational by Q2 next year.

Chen Yan smiled, exchanged a few words, and hung up.

From Tao Jingwen, he learned he’d gained another title: Executive Director of the Hui’an Chamber of Commerce.

He knew well the nature of those old men in the chamber—nominal titles were fine, but don’t expect a single yuan of funding from him.

Want resources? No problem!

Bring something to trade!

Half an hour later, the rain stopped, a gentle breeze blew, and the sky grew slightly brighter.

Chen Yan opened the door, about to go downstairs, when he ran into Gao Weilin walking in.

“Boss, Sina’s Cao Weiguo has announced plans to open Weibo’s funding window—should we invest?”

Gao Weilin paused and spoke slowly.

Weibo?

Chen Yan thought for a moment and declined.

In his view, Weibo’s commercial monetization ability was extremely weak; if one only considered user data, social layout, and traffic entry points, there was no need to invest, since Senlian Capital already had better alternatives—Toutiao and Lingxi Browser.

Also, the short-video project was under development; Liang Bo planned to establish a branch in Lighthouse Country in early December to compete with U.S. and European internet giants for market share in the short-video sector.

“Understood, Boss,” Gao Weilin nodded.

“Come with me for a walk.”

Chen Yan turned and walked forward without waiting.

Gao Weilin responded and hurried after him.

…………

Five days later at 10 a.m., Orange Tech, in collaboration with YY Live, held its first-ever live-streamed product launch for users.

YY Live’s founder Li Ling showed great face, charging only a symbolic advertising fee and pushing over ten million exposures to Orange Tech’s live stream.

The homepages of Toutiao, Lingxi Browser, and the Orange App Store all featured direct links to the live stream.

External traffic reached 20 million!

At exactly 10 a.m., viewership surged linearly, quickly surpassing 100,000.

At this moment, Wang Teng, dressed in a blue suit, stepped onto the stage of the Sky Garden Banquet Hall, smiling slightly at the camera.

Suddenly!

The live stream went black—over a million users dropped off simultaneously!

“Friends, I’m Wang… from Orange Tech…” Wang Teng, unaware, continued his prepared opening remarks calmly.

“Manager Wang, sorry, please wait! The server crashed—tech team is urgently adjusting,” a YY Live staff member shouted from below, waving.

Server crashed?

Wang Teng froze, then asked curiously: “Just 100,000 users and it crashed?”

After all, when he contacted Li Ling, Li had confidently claimed that during last year’s YY Annual Gala, the main hall’s live stream had peaked at one million concurrent viewers.

With YY Live’s backend coding efficiency, distributed architecture, and CDN coverage, it should have easily handled Orange Tech’s online launch.

Yet he hadn’t even finished speaking—and the stream crashed?

“Manager Wang, from 10:00 to 10:03, over 1.26 million viewers flooded in, far exceeding the server’s capacity,” the YY Live employee replied sheepishly, feeling deeply embarrassed.

On the other side.

Li Ling rushed to the tech department upon hearing the news and demanded of the head: “Can you fix it? When?”

Orange Tech, backed by Senlian Capital, held influence in China’s internet investment circle equal to established firms like Sequoia, Hillhouse, and Qiming.

If this partnership failed, Chen Yan’s public criticism could damage YY Live’s reputation among investors.

Moreover, YY Live had just gone public—word of this failure could hurt its stock price.

“Boss, it’s complicated. Previously, we used multi-path CDN nodes, server cluster optimization, and client-side caching to barely handle one million concurrent users, but with high latency and severe stuttering—you know this.”

The tech department head looked troubled.

Before the widespread adoption of 4G networks and the maturity of cloud services, one million concurrent viewers was the upper limit for a single live stream.

“So you’re saying Orange Tech’s live stream exceeded one million viewers?” Li Ling asked incredulously.

YY Live frequently invited second- and even first-tier singers for interactive live streams, hosting new song launches and fan meetings, yet single-stream viewership rarely topped 700,000.

“Precisely 1.267 million. Had the server not crashed, it might have exceeded two million,” the tech head explained.

“I want solutions,” Li Ling waved impatiently.

“Split the stream! Push Orange Tech’s video source to multiple live rooms—but latency and stuttering will persist, and interactive experience will suffer greatly,” the tech head blurted out.

“No other options?” Li Ling frowned.

“Actually, recording first, then on-demand playback is best—it solves network latency and improves video quality.”

After a ten-second hesitation, the tech head offered a new idea.

"Alright, let's start with the first Fenliufangan ." Li Ling chose the first technical solution.

What about recording?

He couldn’t bring himself to mention it to Wang Teng!

If they’re already recording, why is Orange Tech still partnering with YY Live?

Isn’t Tencent Video and Youku Video good enough?

"Understood, Li Zong." The head of the tech department nodded.

In fact, before Li Ling arrived, he had already worked out the technical strategy with his subordinates.

Orange Tech users in front of their computers and phones are still waiting!

Keywords like "YY Live servers crashed," "YY only three minutes," and "Orange Tech live streaming" surged to trending, with the comment section flooded with complaints.

"It’s already been fifteen minutes—can YY Live even work?"

"Customer service told me to wait a bit."

"@LiLing @YYLive, if it works, say it works; if it doesn’t, say it doesn’t—what does 'wait a bit' mean?"

"I heard today’s product launch will highlight two new products: a tablet and a laptop."

At 10:39, Orange Tech’s live stream finally resumed, and netizens immediately clicked in.

Every time the viewer count hits 500,000, the YY platform automatically splits the stream.

The scheduled 10:00 launch was delayed by forty minutes.

"3.94 million?"

Li Ling stared at the backend data, involuntarily swallowed, and suddenly felt that partnering with Orange Tech was his wisest decision.

After the event ends, bump the number up by a million, publicly claim YY Live broke the 5-million-viewer record for a single stream, and not only ride the wave of hype but also boost the stock price.

"Sorry for keeping you all waiting. Now I’ll introduce two new Orange Tech products: the Orange Pad 1 and the Orange MagicBook laptop."

Wang Teng returned to the viewers’ view, smiling.

The Orange Pad 1 is powered by a Tegra3 quad-core processor, features a 9.7-inch touchscreen with a resolution of 2048x1536, standard memory configuration of 2GB+16GB, and supports 1080p video playback, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, multi-touch, GPS, and gravity sensing.

The system runs a deeply customized AuroraOS 1.46, embedded with Mos Voice Interaction Engine, with a 5-megapixel front camera and a 12-megapixel rear camera.

Wang Teng explained each feature in turn, comparing the Orange Pad 1’s core specs with Apple’s iPad 4 and Shanxing N8000.

The screen size matches the iPad 4 and is slightly smaller than the Shanxing N8000.

The camera resolution utterly outclasses Apple and Shanxing, and Orange Tech’s photo algorithm is no slouch—image quality holds its own.

A 7000mAh battery delivers an astonishing 600 hours of standby time, and up to 11 to 13 hours under heavy use—battery life exceeds the iPad 4 and Shanxing N8000 by over 10%.

"The 16GB standard version is priced at 1999 yuan!"

An hour later, Wang Teng casually revealed the launch price.

This price instantly made Yu Chendong, watching the stream, grimace and suck in a sharp breath.

(End of chapter)