Chapter 357: Revenue 147.5 Billion, 50.1 Million Globally! Meizu, OPPO: Is This Fair?

“Principal Tang, long time no see!”

Cao Dahua walked into Tang Qingshan’s office, carrying a gift bag.

“Looks like after becoming successful, your personality’s changed—you actually remembered to bring a gift.”

Tang Qingshan looked up, sizing Cao Dahua up, and chuckled teasingly.

Compared to a year ago, Cao Dahua had clearly lost a lot of weight; he wore a dark bespoke suit, the fabric alone revealing its high price.

His mustache was neatly trimmed, his hair slicked back in a three-seven part, exuding the aura of a corporate boss.

“Before, I just kept mooching your tea leaves; now that I’ve got some money, I figured it was time to pay you back.” Cao Dahua grinned.

“Sit down—I’ve got a can of tea from Student Chen, still unopened. Let you taste some fresh stuff.”

Tang Qingshan smiled.

Today was different from the past—Cao Dahua was no longer a mentor at the startup park, nor that lazy old hand who slacked off all day; he was now the general manager of Orange Phone Factory, overseeing thirty to forty thousand employees.

“Then I’m in for a treat.” Cao Dahua rubbed his hands instinctively, pulled over a chair, and sat down across from Tang Qingshan.

“Back for your year-end report?” Tang Qingshan stood, walked to the cabinet, and picked out a can of Yunwu Bai Cha from a row of elegantly packaged teas.

“Yes. Boss Chen’s business keeps growing, his empire expanding—he can’t personally inspect every corner like before.”

Cao Dahua, acting as if he owned the place, snatched the tea can from Tang Qingshan’s hand and hurried to boil water.

The two sat facing each other, separated by a tea table.

“You’ve got good luck—climbed onto a big leg. People, once they reach the second half of life, rarely get another chance to rise.” Tang Qingshan looked at Cao Dahua and couldn’t help but sigh.

“Luck is part of ability too. Boss Chen wanted to enter the phone industry, and I had experience in phone manufacturing, procurement, and operations—how can you call that luck?”

Cao Dahua spoke with obvious pride.

“Too bad—Chen Yansen bought a 460,000-square-meter industrial plot in Lucheng. In two years, the area around Xu Academy will be back to 2010 levels.”

Tang Qingshan stared at the boiling tea water, speaking with deep regret.

“You could just move the school there.” Cao Dahua joked.

“Do you think I don’t want to?” Tang Qingshan rolled his eyes.

Moving the school was just a joke.

Even if Pinbei, Orange Tech, Today Tech, and Orange Pay have relocated, the goodwill remains—they’ll still easily absorb hundreds of Xu Academy graduates each year.

At least, positions at KuaiPao, YunSu, and Orange Phone Factory won’t be lacking.

Cao Dahua grinned, his gaze passing through the glass window to the startup park nearby—the launchpad of his second life.

…

…

It was New Year’s Day, January 1, 2013.

After dealing with Hu Ruihui and others, Chen Yansen returned to the villa district of Sanjiaozhou.

You can’t have employees off while the boss keeps working.

In reality, at least a third of the tech park staff were still coming in to work.

The reason was simple: triple pay today.

An operations staff member earning 12,000 yuan monthly could earn 1,655 yuan in overtime by working just six hours.

Thus, overtime slots were fiercely contested during every holiday.

Usually, supervisors scheduled shifts so everyone got a turn—satisfying both the company and the staff.

But they didn’t know Chen Yansen didn’t care.

With the profit levels of Pinbei and Orange Tech, those overtime payments were negligible—just a perk.

Song Yuncheng was cooking in the kitchen; Chen Yansen sat on a chair beside the fish pond, occasionally tossing in fish food, drawing a frenzy from several plump koi.

The cold wind of Huibei had no effect on him—even outdoors, he wore only a thin solid-color undershirt.

After wrapping up Huawei’s cooperation matters, only year-end reports from subsidiaries remained.

He’d heard from Lao Zuo that Cao Dahua had returned to Xu City two days early.

Mao Chaorong had also boarded a plane and was heading back to China.

Chen Yansen originally planned to hold online reports, but Gao Wei said: “Boss, let’s take a New Year group photo.”

Instantly convinced him!

Also, Chen Yansen wanted to use this chance to communicate one-on-one with the heads of all his subsidiary companies.

Human hearts change!

Even those he personally selected could not remain unchanged forever.

With his spiritual sense, he could easily discern a person’s true thoughts from subtle cues: facial expressions, micro-movements, tone of voice.

He could guess who was scheming behind his back with near certainty.

“Dinner’s ready, Chef Chen!” Song Yuncheng, wearing an apron, called out from the living room doorway, interrupting his thoughts.

With the New Year arrived, Song Yuncheng was now twenty-two—under his care, she had grown even more radiant and beautiful.

“Huh! So I’m twenty-one again?”

Chen Yansen silently chuckled, then stood and strolled calmly toward the living room.

Two days passed swiftly—January 4, 2013, the first workday of the year.

Cars lined up outside the tech park.

Liao Wei stepped out of his car, and before he’d taken two steps, he bumped into Pei Yi, Cheng Weixing, and Xiao Jun chatting at the entrance.

“Oh! General Liao’s here! How’s your MBA course going?”

Pei Yi and Liao Wei were both in Shanghai; privately, they occasionally had drinks together—they were close.

“Don’t mention it! Boss says my previous course was too easy, so he assigned me an advanced one. I’m over forty, still taking notes and doing homework every day—this is torture!”

Liao Wei’s face dropped immediately as he complained bitterly.

“Really? So General Liao’s so reluctant?”

A familiar voice suddenly came from behind.

Liao Wei froze, instinctively glancing at his watch—it was 10:15 a.m. The boss should be in his office, not here.

But he couldn’t pretend not to hear—he turned around, forcing a nervous laugh: “Boss, everyone knows I love learning—I’m not even fifty yet, still in my prime.”

“Good,” Chen Yansen said with a smile, teasingly watching Liao Wei.

Pei Yi, Cheng Weixing, and Xiao Jun, seeing Liao Wei’s discomfort, tried hard to suppress their laughter—but their strained expressions only made Liao Wei feel worse.

“Boss, Happy New Year,” Xiao Jun greeted first.

“Boss!”

“Boss!” Pei Yi and Cheng Weixing followed.

“Let’s go—first, to Building Nine for the photo.”

Chen Yansen waved his hand and led the way straight into the former conference room, now converted into a photo studio.

Zhang Zheng from Pinbei, Zhou Shouzhi from Orange Tech, Liang Bo from Today Tech, Zhang Yinjia from Orange Pay, Hu Weiyi from ofo, Mao Chaorong from Mimo, Zhang Yiming from ByteDance, and Qu Fang from Xiaohongshu arrived one after another at the studio.

Chen Yansen stood in the center, Gao Wei and Zhou Shouzhi on his left, Cao Dahua on his right.

The rest lined up neatly on both sides, forming a long row.

*Click!*

The photographer’s shutter clicked dozens of times in succession.

They didn’t finish until 11:30 a.m., then all went together to the cafeteria for a simple lunch.

At 2 p.m., Yu Chendong and Hisilicon’s He Boting arrived by car; Chen Yansen greeted them briefly, then handed the rest to Wu Shengyu and Mike.

The pricing standards for OrangeZ1’s architecture license, IP core license, and usage license had already been set.

Yu Chendong and He Boting brought over a dozen engineers—just to verify OrangeZ1’s instruction set encoding efficiency and power-performance ratio. Wu Shengyu and Mike were the best to handle the coordination.

Meanwhile,

Senlian Capital’s year-end summary officially began—Orange Tech was first.

Zhou Shouzhi presided; Chen Yansen sat in the main seat, listening.

“Boss, General Zhou, I’ll begin,” Yan Peng from E-commerce softly said.

Chen Yansen nodded.

“In 2012, Orange Phone sold 50.1 million units total: 43.4 million in domestic market, 6.7 million overseas, revenue of 112.7 billion Huayuan, hardware gross profit 12.49 billion, software gross profit 7.23 billion, totaling 19.72 billion.”

Yan Peng connected the projector, opened a PPT, and began speaking slowly.

He paused, then continued: “Orange Power Bank sold 10.39 million units, revenue 1.34 billion Huayuan, gross profit 410 million;

Mos Smart Speaker sold 3.4 million units, revenue 2.72 billion Huayuan, gross profit 460 million;

Alexa Smart Speaker sold 8.2 million units, revenue 10.77 billion Huayuan, gross profit 2.05 billion…”

Chen Yansen’s eyes fell on the summary column: adding Bluetooth headphones, tablets, laptops, accessories, and software revenue, Orange Tech’s total 2012 revenue was 147.5 billion Huayuan, gross profit 23.5 billion, net profit 7.49 billion Huayuan.

Still lower than Pinbei Mall’s Q4 net profit!

But to Chen Yansen, Orange Tech’s value was ten times greater than Pinbei’s.

Ten minutes later, Yan Peng finished his report.

Ye Qiuping followed, presenting a visualized data table summarizing the entire year’s marketing results—from new product launches to channel promotion metrics—all clear, understandable, and easy to grasp.

Though Ye Qiuping’s credentials were fake, her abilities were genuine.

Her work performance, reporting efficiency, and logical thinking were no less than Yan Peng’s—no less than a top graduate or former Ali executive.

After she finished, Wang Teng, He Shuang, Zhang Cong, Zhou Ze, Ding Houmeng, and others completed their work summaries and year-end reports.

7.49 billion Huayuan?

No wonder Leiyi Army was selling TVs, air conditioners, electric fans, even desk lamps, water cups, and night lights, turning Xiaomi into an outright general store.

After deducting material costs, manufacturing expenses, patent licensing fees, and after-sales costs, a mobile phone company with nearly 150 billion in annual revenue ended up with just over 7 billion in net profit.

Like begging for food!

The real money-makers are Qualcomm and ARM—none of it goes to the terminal manufacturers and sellers.

“Old Zhou, accelerate expansion into overseas markets—make it the core strategy for fiscal year 2013.”

Chen Yansen instructed Zhou Shouzhi beside him.

“Understood, boss,” Zhou Shouzhi replied immediately.

Meanwhile,

at Xiaomi’s headquarters in Yancheng, Lei Zong sat in the conference room, staring at the large screen ahead, deaf to Li Wanqiang’s words.

In 2012, Xiaomi Technology shipped 7.26 million units; including digital peripherals, game partnerships, and software revenue, total revenue reached 12.6 billion, with net profit of 1.74 billion.

They made over a billion, but compared to a year’s relentless effort, it was pitifully little.

“Lei Zong, should we issue a public announcement?” Li Wanqiang called out several times; seeing no response, he raised his voice.

“A ugly daughter-in-law must meet her in-laws. Release it.”

Lei Zong sighed; his expression showed no joy, but neither did it show sorrow.

Annual sales of 7.26 million units were neither outstanding nor poor—better than Meizu and OPPO, but far behind Huawei and ZTE.

As for Orange, Shanxing, and Apple, Xiaomi couldn’t even pretend to compete with them.

“Understood,” Li Wanqiang replied.

What he didn’t expect was that as soon as Xiaomi’s official microblog posted its year-end performance, Zhou Hongyi followed by announcing 360 Mobile’s full-year sales.

With just one exclusive model and one pseudo-self-branded smartphone, 360 Mobile sold a staggering 8.39 million units in 2012.

Though unstated, this clearly contrasted with Xiaomi’s 7.26 million.

“From sales figures alone, 360 Mobile’s products are solid—far superior to some coarse-grain brand. If someone wants to make phones, then make them properly: one, don’t use insults and arguments for marketing; two, don’t copy and plagiarize to develop products…”

Zhou Hongyi wrote a long passage, returning every sarcastic remark Lei Zong had once directed at him, unchanged.

It sent netizens into fits of laughter!

Does 360 Mobile have any technology?

Without Orange Technology’s supply chain and manufacturing capabilities, it would have ended up just like Haier’s W910.

“Hello, Zhou Zong, what’s the IP address of your pig brain? 360 Mobile is all low-end models—how can it compare to Xiaomi?”

A netizen with a MIUI system prefix fired back without mercy.

Zhou Hongyi laughed bitterly, immediately exposed the user, and shouted across the internet to Lei Zong: “Mid-range phones, right? 360 is preparing to launch a 1,999-yuan smartphone with specs that will utterly crush Xiaomi. Let’s compare domestic sales next year—I’ll slap your face hard.”

Lei Zong, Li Wanqiang, and Lin Bing all jumped in, trading insults with the “Pope of Zhou.”

NetEase’s Ding Lei, seeing the chaos, feared it wasn’t lively enough; at the peak of their bickering, he publicly announced NetEase Mobile’s sales: 4.13 million units total.

This enraged Huang Zhang of Meizu and Chen Yongming of OPPO—who the hell was buying NetEase and 360 phones?

After a year of hard work, they were outdone by two amateurs—is this fair? Is this reasonable?

Coolpad, ZTE, Motorola, HTC—all were stunned. Combined, 360 and NetEase Mobile had sold over ten million units?

An hour later, a U.S.-based research firm named IHSiSuppli released an industry report: 2012 China mobile phone shipments (including feature phones) and market share.

Orange Mobile led with 42.9 million units shipped, followed by Shanxing at 41 million.

Netizens who had doubted the figures soon saw Orange Technology’s official clarification: “Our full-year domestic smart phone sales were 43.4 million units; global sales reached 50.1 million!”

50.1 million units!

Crushing Shanxing and Apple!

For the first time, a domestic smart phone brand stood atop the sales throne!

Suddenly, Zhou Hongyi and Lei Zong’s feud was forgotten by everyone.

(End of Chapter)