Chapter 357

"Principal Tang, long time no see!"

Cao Dahua, carrying a gift bag, stepped into Tang Qingshan's office.

"Looks like after getting rich, Teacher Cao has changed his ways, even remembering to bring gifts."

Tang Qingshan looked up, sized Cao Dahua up and down, and teased with a smile.

Compared to a year ago, Cao Dahua was noticeably thinner, wearing a dark bespoke suit; just from the fabric, one could tell it was expensive.

His mustache was cleaned off completely, his hair slicked back in a three-seven part, giving him quite the air of a group CEO.

"Before, I only thought of mooching your tea; now that my wallet is fuller, of course I have to return the favor." Cao Dahua chuckled.

"Sit down. I have a jar of tea sent by Classmate Chen, still unopened; let you have a fresh taste."

Tang Qingshan said with a smile.

Today was different from the past; Cao Dahua was no longer the guidance teacher at the startup park, nor that old slacker who loafed around all day, but the general manager of Sister Chengzi's phone factory, managing thirty to forty thousand employees.

"Then I'm in for a treat." Cao Dahua rubbed his hands together out of habit, pulled over a chair on his own, and sat opposite Tang Qingshan.

"Back for the year-end report?" Tang Qingshan stood up, walked to the cabinet, and picked a jar of Cloud Mist White Tea from a row of beautifully packaged teas.

"Yes. President Chen's business is growing more and more, the scale is expanding, so naturally he can't inspect everything one by one like before."

Cao Dahua, acting overly familiar, snatched the tea jar from Tang Qingshan's hands and busied himself with boiling water and making tea.

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

"You certainly have good luck, latching onto a big leg. People, once they reach the second half of life, rarely get another chance to climb up." Tang Qingshan looked at Cao Dahua and couldn't help but sigh.

"Luck is part of ability. Just as President Chen wanted to enter the mobile phone industry, and just as I have management, procurement, and operational experience in mobile phone manufacturing, how can that not be ability?"

Cao Dahua said proudly.

"Pity. President Chen Yansen bought a forty-six-hectare industrial plot in Luhu; I'm afraid that in two years, the area near Xu Yuan will return to 2010 levels."

Tang Qingshan gazed at the rolling tea water and said with great reluctance.

"You could move the school there." Cao Dahua joked.

"You think I don't want to?" Tang Qingshan rolled his eyes.

Moving the school was just a joke.

By then, although Pinba, Sister Chengzi Technology, Jinri Technology, and Sister Chengzi Payment would have moved, the bond of incense would remain; accepting a few hundred Xu Yuan graduates annually would be no problem.

At the very least, there would be plenty of positions at Kuai Pao, Yunsu, and the Sister Chengzi Phone Factory.

Cao Dahua grinned, his gaze passing through the glass window to land on the startup park not far away, the place where his second life had set sail.

It was the New Year's Day holiday, the first day of 2013.

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

After all, employees get holidays, but the boss can't keep working forever.

In fact, at this moment in the technology park, at least one-third of the people present were there to work overtime.

And the reason was simple: today meant triple pay.

An operations staff member with a monthly salary of 12,000 could earn 1,655 yuan in overtime pay by working just six hours.

Therefore, every holiday, overtime slots in each department were highly sought after.

Usually, supervisors would schedule shifts so everyone got a turn, satisfying both the company and the subordinates.

But they didn't know that Chen Yansen simply didn't care.

Given the profitability levels of Pinba, Sister Chengzi Technology, and other companies, that overtime pay was a drop in the bucket, treated as a welfare benefit.

Song Yuncheng was cooking in the kitchen while Chen Yansen dragged a chair to sit by the fish pond, occasionally tossing a handful of fish food into the water, causing several plump koi to compete for it.

The cold wind of Huibei had no effect on him; even staying outdoors, Chen Yansen wore only a thin, solid-colored undershirt.

Next, after handling the Huawei cooperation matters, only the year-end work reports from the subsidiaries remained.

He heard Old Left say that Cao Dahua had returned to Xu City two days early.

Mao Chaorong had also boarded a plane and was rushing back to the country.

Chen Yansen had originally planned to conduct the reports online, but Gao Weilin said, "Boss, let's take a New Year group photo."

That instantly convinced him!

Besides, Chen Yansen also wanted to use this opportunity to communicate one-on-one with the heads of each of his holding subsidiaries.

Human hearts change easily!

Even people he personally selected are hard to keep unchanged forever.

With his spiritual power, he could easily distinguish a person's true inner thoughts through subtle information like facial expressions, micro-movements, and tone of voice.

He could also guess with eighty or ninety percent accuracy who was pulling strings behind the scenes.

"Dinner's ready, Chef Chen." At this moment, Song Yuncheng, wearing an apron, stood at the living room door and shouted loudly at Chen Yansen, interrupting his thoughts.

The New Year had arrived, and Song Yuncheng was now twenty-two; under his nurturing, she appeared even more radiant and beautiful.

"Whoa! I'm twenty-one again?"

Chen Yansen chuckled inwardly, then stood up and walked leisurely toward the living room.

Two days passed in the blink of an eye; January 4, the first workday of 2013.

Luxury cars lined up like clouds below the technology park building.

Liao Wei stepped out of the car, and before he had taken two steps, he bumped into Pei Yi, Cheng Weixing, and Xiao Jun, who were talking at the entrance.

"Oh, President Liao has arrived. How are your recent MBA courses going?"

Pei Yi and Liao Wei were both in Hucheng; privately, the two occasionally had a drink together and were very familiar.

"Don't mention it! The boss said the courses I signed up for before were too simple, so he picked a set of advanced courses for me. I'm over forty years old, yet I still have to take notes and do homework every day; it's bitter!"

Liao Wei heard this and immediately drooped his face, complaining incessantly.

"Really? So Vice President Liao is so reluctant?"

A familiar voice suddenly appeared behind him.

Liao Wei's expression froze; he instinctively looked at his wristwatch—10:15 a. m. The boss should be sitting in his office, not here.

But he couldn't pretend not to hear his boss, so he turned around and forced a laugh: "Boss, everyone knows I love learning—I'm not even fifty yet, still in my prime to strive."

"Good, I don't want you retiring before fifty," Chen Yansen said with a smile, eyeing Liao Wei teasingly.

Pei Yi, Cheng Weixing, and Xiao Jun, seeing Liao Wei embarrassed, barely held back 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 right after.

"Let's go, first to Building Nine for photos."

Chen Yansen waved his hand, leading the way straight into the former conference room turned photo studio.

Among those who arrived one after another at the studio were Huang Zheng from Pinbei, Zhou Shouzhi from OrangeTech, Liang Bo from TodayTech, Zhang Yinjia from OrangePay, Hu Weiyi from ofo, Mao Chao from Mimo, Zhang Yiming from ByteDance, and Qu Fang from Xiaohongshu.

Chen Yansen stood in the center, Gao Weilin 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, then all went together to the cafeteria for a simple lunch.

At 2 p. m., Yu Chendong and He Boting from HiSilicon arrived by car; Chen Yansen stepped out briefly to greet them, then handed the rest of the work over to Zheng Shengyu and Mike.

After all, 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, merely to verify the encoding efficiency and power efficiency of the OrangeZ1 instruction set—Zheng Shengyu and Mike were the most suitable to handle the coordination.

Meanwhile.

The year-end summary at Senlian Capital officially began, with OrangeTech delivering the first report.

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

"Boss, General Zhou, I'll begin," Yan Peng from the E-commerce Department said softly.

Chen Yansen nodded.

"In 2012, OrangePhone sold a total of 50.1 million units: 43.4 million in the domestic market, 6.7 million overseas, generating revenue of 112.7 billion Billion Huayuan, hardware gross profit of 12.49 billion, software gross profit of 7.23 billion, totaling 19.72 billion."

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

He paused, then continued: "OrangeMobile Power Bank sold 10.39 million units, revenue of 1.34 billion Billion Huayuan, gross profit of 410 million;

Mo Si Smart Speaker sold 3.4 million units, revenue of 2.72 billion Billion Huayuan, gross profit of 460 million;

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

Chen Yansen's gaze fell on the summary column: adding Bluetooth headphones, tablets, laptops, accessories, and software revenue, OrangeTech's total 2012 revenue reached 147.5 billion, gross profit 23.5 billion, net profit 7.49 billion Billion Huayuan.

It was still less than Pinbei Mall's Q4 net profit!

But to Chen Yansen, OrangeTech's value was ten times greater than Pinbei's!

Ten minutes later, Yan Peng finished his report.

Ye Qiuping followed, summarizing the entire year's marketing achievements into a visualized data table—everything from new product launches to channel promotion metrics was clearly visible, easy to understand and grasp.

Although Ye Qiuping's academic credentials were fake, her abilities contained no water.

Her work capability, reporting efficiency, and logical thinking were no less than those of high-achievers like Yan Peng or former Mama Ali executives.

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

7.49 billion Billion Huayuan?

No wonder Lei Yi had to sell TVs, air conditioners, fans—even desk lamps, cups, night lights—to turn Xiaomi into a 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 only 7 billion in net profit.

Like begging for food!

The real money-makers were Gao Tong and ARM—not the end-product manufacturers and sellers.

"Old Zhou, accelerate overseas market expansion—it's the core strategy for fiscal year 2013."

Chen Yansen instructed Zhou Shouzhi beside him.

"Understood, Boss," Zhou Shouzhi replied immediately.

Meanwhile.

Far away in Beijing, Lei Yi sat in Xiaomi's conference room, staring at the large screen, ignoring Li Wanyu's words.

Xiaomi's 2012 shipment volume was 7.26 million units; including digital peripherals, gaming partnerships, and software revenue, total revenue reached 12.6 billion, net profit 1.74 billion.

They made over a billion, but compared to a year's hard work, it was pitifully little.

"Boss, should we issue a statement?" Li Wanyu called out several times; seeing Lei Yi didn't respond, he raised his voice.

"A ugly daughter must meet her in-laws—issue it."

Lei Yi sighed; his expression showed neither joy nor sorrow.

Annual sales of 7.26 million units were middling—better than Meizu and OPPO, but far behind Huawei and ZTE.

As for Orange, Shanxing, and Apple, Xiaomi couldn't even compare.

"Understood," Li Wanyu replied.

What he didn't expect was that the moment Xiaomi's official Weibo posted its year-end results, Zhou Hongyi immediately announced 360 Phone's full-year sales.

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

Though unstated, it clearly contrasted with Xiaomi's 7.26 million.

"Looking at sales figures, 360's mobile products are solid—far superior to some coarse-grain brand. Since someone wants to make phones, then do it properly: one, don't use insults and arguments for marketing; two, don't build products through plagiarism and imitation..."

Zhou Hongyi wrote a lengthy passage, returning verbatim the mockery Lei Yi had previously directed at him.

This sparked a roar of laughter from netizens!

Does 360 have technology?

Without relying on Sister Chengzi's supply chain and manufacturing capabilities, it would likely meet the same fate as the Haier W910.

"Hello, General Zhou, what's the IP address of your pig brain? All 360 phones are low-end models—how can they compete with Xiaomi?"

A netizen with the MIUI system prefix hurled the insult without restraint.

Zhou Hongyi laughed in anger and immediately exposed the user, then called out across the internet to Lei Yi: "Mid-range phones, huh? 360 is preparing to launch a smartphone priced at 1,999 yuan—with specs that will utterly crush Xiaomi. Let's compare next year's domestic sales—I'll slap your face hard."

Lei Yi, Li Wanqiang, and Lin Bing all joined in, trading insults with Zhou Jiaozhu.

Ding Lei of NetEase, fearing the scene wasn't lively enough, announced NetEase's phone sales at the peak of their brawl: a cumulative total of 4.13 million units.

This enraged Meizu's Huang Zhang and OPPO's Chen Yongming—who the hell is buying NetEase and 360 phones?

After working their asses off all year, they were outdone by two amateurs—is this fair? Is this reasonable?

Ku Sect, ZTE, Motorola, HTC, and others were also stunned—the combined sales of 360 and NetEase phones reached over ten million units?

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

Sister Chengzi phones held the top spot with 42.9 million units sold; Shanxing ranked second with 41 million units sold.

Netizens who had doubted this data soon saw Sister Chengzi Technology's official clarification: "Our full-year domestic smart phone sales reached 43.4 million units, and global sales reached 50.1 million units!"

50.1 million units!

Crushing Shanxing and Apple!

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

Suddenly, Zhou Hongyi and Lei Yi's feud faded into irrelevance.

(End of Chapter)