Chapter 3475: A successful press conference

After unlocking the screen, Hou Wenchang skillfully began to operate it. He first called up the phone's dialing interface, and a virtual keyboard appeared on the screen. He said, "Who off-stage can report your phone number to me?"

The reporters off-stage scrambled to report their phone numbers. Who wouldn't want to be a witness and participant in this epoch-making product?

Hou Wenchang randomly selected a reporter in the middle. That reporter loudly reported his phone number. Hou Wenchang dialed the reporter's phone on the virtual keypad. A few seconds later, the reporter's phone rang. Suddenly, the entire venue fell silent, and everyone's eyes were fixed on that reporter.

That reporter pressed the answer button with excitement on his face. He said "Hello" into the phone, and his voice came out of the speakers on the podium, which actually startled him, because the phone in Hou Wenchang's hand was connected to the speakers via Bluetooth, so the phone's voice could come out of the speakers.

This reporter's call only lasted for one minute, because it was just to test the call function of the phone in Hou Wenchang's hand, and it didn't need to be too long. However, this one-minute call could also be recorded in history.

Next, Hou Wenchang began to demonstrate other functions. This time, he used Hongyan, the instant messaging software under Hanhai Technology, to have a video chat with someone thousands of miles away. The person chatting with him was Gao Yuan, the Vice President of Hanhai Technology's Jiangcheng headquarters. Gao Yuan also had a phone exactly the same as the one in Hou Wenchang's hand.

When Hou Wenchang dialed Gao Yuan's Hongyan number and requested a video chat, everyone in the audience held their breath, waiting for the realization of the video chat function Hou Wenchang mentioned. This was too magical; for them, they hadn't even dared to think about it before.

Video chat functionality had already been realized on computers, but such a small phone could do video chat? Everyone had some doubts.

But a few seconds later, the video chat between the two was connected. When Gao Yuan's figure standing in the office of Hanhai Technology's Jiangcheng headquarters appeared on the big screen, the most enthusiastic applause erupted throughout the venue. This was applause for the progress of technology; everyone knew that this was truly an epoch-making invention.

Hou Wenchang's demonstration continued. He used the smartphone to surf the internet, search, watch videos, process documents, send emails, and play games. In short, as long as it was a function that a computer could achieve, this small smartphone could achieve it, and many functions only required a gentle swipe of a finger to be realized.

Especially when Hou Wenchang opened a picture and then used two fingers to realize the zoom-in and zoom-out function, the applause in the venue was endless. Such a phone was simply too magical.

Just as the applause in the venue continued, the whole country and even the whole world were boiling, because this product launch was broadcast simultaneously through TV and the Hanhai Network, and the whole world could watch it through the live internet broadcast.

And the magical creativity and powerful functions of this smartphone were enough to make everyone who saw it go crazy. No one expected that a smartphone could actually be made like this.

Before this smartphone appeared, there were so-called smartphones, but those smartphones basically only had half a screen, and the other half was buttons. The touch experience was very poor, and most of the functions had to be realized through buttons; there was no such feeling of free control at all.

Moreover, compared to this phone, the original smartphones were also far behind in terms of functionality.

On the comment page of the Hanhai Network's live broadcast of the press conference, the most common comment was that this was completely "black technology" from outer space and shouldn't appear on Earth. Another comment was that they wanted to own this phone, no matter how much it cost.

And now Hou Wenchang had already started talking about money. Hou Wenchang said that in order to develop this Hanhai Generation-1 smartphone, Hanhai Technology had already invested one billion yuan in R&D expenses and spent nearly four years, and now they finally had results.

This did not include the investment in the Xiaoyao operating system, which was developed for this Hanhai Generation-1 phone. On the Xiaoyao system, Hanhai Technology had also invested more than 200 million yuan in R&D expenses.

These figures made everyone gasp. Hanhai Technology's investment in technical R&D over these years was truly a big move; they had spent more than 1.2 billion yuan on this smartphone, which was truly incredible.

You have to know that in 2005, it wasn't like more than a decade later, where billionaires seemed to be everywhere. At that time, large companies would easily invest billions. In this era, more than a billion yuan was already a very huge figure.

At that time, many reporters were asking Hou Wenchang: When will this phone be on the market? Where will it be on the market? What is the price of this phone?

Hou Wenchang answered these questions one by one. This phone would be officially launched in three months. The first place it would be launched was China. Hanhai Technology would sell the Hanhai Generation-1 phone simultaneously in Hanhai direct-sale stores across the country, and it would also be sold simultaneously on the Hanhai Network's online shopping platform.

Afterwards, other versions of the Hanhai Generation-1 would also be launched in corresponding regions one after another, to be sold to consumers worldwide.

The Hanhai Generation-1 phone was divided into two versions: 128M memory and 256M memory. The 128MB memory version was priced at $699 overseas, and the 256MB memory version was priced at $799 overseas. Their prices in China were 4,000 yuan and 5,000 yuan respectively.

As soon as Hou Wenchang's words were spoken, the whole venue was in an uproar. This was not because the phone was too expensive, but because the price of this phone was too cheap.

You have to know that in this era, the best-selling phones were still those button phones, and the flagship models of these button phones were priced one more expensive than the other. At that time, a flagship model from Motorola was sold at a high price of over 8,000 yuan, and two flagship models from Samsung were also priced at over 6,000 yuan.

Compared to the Hanhai Generation-1 smartphone, the functions of such button phones were far behind, but the price was higher than the Hanhai Generation-1. It was conceivable that after the Hanhai Generation-1 was launched, would those phones still be able to sell?

At that time, there were reporters off-stage excitedly typing on their laptops: "The doomsday of traditional button phones has arrived."

Many people also noticed that the selling price of the Hanhai Generation-1 phone overseas was higher than the selling price in China. At that time, the exchange rate of the US dollar to the RMB was still over 8. So, converted, the selling prices of the two versions of the Hanhai Generation-1 phone overseas were about 5,700 RMB and 6,500 RMB respectively.

Compared to the 4,000 and 5,000 RMB in China, the overseas price was much higher. For Chinese enterprises at that time, this was also an unprecedented feat, because the products exported by Chinese enterprises at that time were of high quality and low price, while the similar products they sold in China were of low quality and high price compared to the products they exported.

But the Hanhai Generation-1 phone went against the trend, which immediately won the hearts of the vast number of domestic internet users. Before the Hanhai Generation-1 phone was even on the market, its reputation was already very good.

Today's Hanhai Technology new product launch ended in a very enthusiastic atmosphere, and on this day, a Hanhai storm was set off all over the world.

Many media outlets used "Epoch-making" to name the photo of Hou Wenchang swiping to unlock the Hanhai Generation-1 phone, and in their reports, they all called the Hanhai Generation-1 smartphone a product that changed the world.

This sentence was not an exaggeration at all. The Hanhai Generation-1 smartphone indeed deserved to be called a product that changed the world. It would completely change the habits of phone users, change the work habits of many people, make the world smaller, make people's lives more colorful, make this world more vibrant, and even profoundly change people's way of thinking.

After the press conference, Hou Wenchang hosted a banquet for all the guests at the Hou Family Grand Hotel, including the leaders of Baozhou City, those reporters, and representatives of many IT companies.

Hou Wenchang was at the same table with Zhao Yichen and Su Xinghui. Zhao Yichen first raised his glass to congratulate Hou Wenchang. Although Zhao Yichen didn't know much about the technology world and didn't understand some of the new technologies used in the Hanhai Generation-1 phone, he could also feel the sensation that the Hanhai Generation-1 phone would cause from the enthusiastic atmosphere at the scene.

Hou Wenchang had a drink with Zhao Yichen, and then he toasted Su Xinghui. Today's press conference was a huge success, but Hou Wenchang knew that without Su Xinghui, there would be no Hanhai phone at all, or at least it wouldn't have appeared so quickly.

And Su Xinghui's guidance allowed Hanhai Technology to avoid many detours. If it weren't for Su Xinghui, Hanhai Technology might not have been able to manufacture the Hanhai Generation-1 phone even if they spent another billion.

And how much immense wealth would the Hanhai Generation-1 phone bring to Hanhai Technology? This was immeasurable. Taking the domestic market as an example, in 2004, the annual sales of mobile phones in the country reached more than 70 million units, and this figure was rising every year.

Among them, the sales of high-end mobile phones over 3,000 yuan were about 10 million units, but these high-end mobile phones were only relative. Once the Hanhai phone was launched, the market for these high-end mobile phones would be swallowed up by the Hanhai phone. It could be said that they would have no market anymore.

Even if the Hanhai phone only sold 5 million units in the domestic market a year, that would be a sales volume of over 20 billion yuan. Added to the sales in the overseas market, how huge would this sales volume be?

Most of the Hanhai phone's technology was independent, so their profit margin was very high. Calculating this way, their annual profit would be at least over 10 billion yuan, and there was huge room for growth. How huge would this wealth be? Hou Wenchang couldn't even imagine it now.