Chen Pingjiang's next encounter with Yin Hui was on a flight to BJ.
He felt the older twin's gaze toward him was growing increasingly complex...
After getting off the plane, Chen Pingjiang had a series of engagements.
Liu Qiangdong and Zhou Hongyi each wanted to meet with him.
These people's noses were indeed sharper than a dog's; as soon as Chen Pingjiang arrived in BJ, their calls started coming in.
After Chen Pingjiang met up with Lin Bin and Zhou Guangping, he was surprised to receive a call from Leibus.
Not long after hanging up, Leibus specially rushed to the hotel where Chen Pingjiang was staying.
As soon as they met, Leibus enthusiastically walked up and shook Chen Pingjiang's hand.
"Oh, Mr. Chen, it really gives me too much face that you could come this time."
Chen Mingjiang smiled and said,
"Mr. Lei, at this time, shouldn't you be preparing for the press conference? Why did you come to see me?"
At Chen Pingjiang's direct question, Lei Jun was a bit embarrassed, then laughed heartily while continuously rubbing his hands.
Finally, Lin Bin instigated,
"Old Lei, just say what you want to say."
"It's like this," Lei Jun said, "I came here to inform you of the launch price for the Xiaomi M1."
Hearing this, Chen Pingjiang smiled,
"Mr. Lei thinks too highly of me. Why do you need to inform me about Xiaomi's prices?"
"It must be said, it must be said. I might not tell others, but Mr. Chen must be informed, so you don't overthink things."
Chen Pingjiang and Lin Bin exchanged a smile, then turned and said,
"Alright, Mr. Lei, go ahead and tell us."
"The starting price for our Xiaomi M1 is 1999 yuan."
As soon as he finished speaking, Lin Bin stood up in shock.
"Old Lei, are you serious? Are you going to be a price butcher right from the start?"
Lei Jun gave a bitter smile,
"You see? That's why I wanted to communicate with you in advance, so you wouldn't have other ideas. We decided on this price after long-term analysis. If I set it too high, we wouldn't have any competitiveness against your Orange Phones, so I could only price it around 2000, actually just to avoid you. In my vision, Orange Phones do high-end, and Xiaomi does mid-to-low end."
Lin Bin wanted to speak further, but Chen Pingjiang reached out to stop him.
He smiled and said,
"Old Lin, you're getting ahead of yourself. Xiaomi is Mr. Lei's venture; he can set whatever price he wants. But I must say, this price is very attractive, and I believe the Xiaomi M1 will be a hit."
Facing such a price butcher, Chen Mingjiang also had a considerable headache.
"So, Mr. Lei, are you here today just because you're worried I'll drop the price of the Orange S2?"
Since the cards were on the table, Lei Jun no longer hid anything.
"Exactly, what we're most worried about is the Orange S2 dropping from 3299 to below 3000."
Chen Mingjiang nodded,
"Then I might have to disappoint Mr. Lei. Whether or not we cut prices is not something we can decide; it's up to the market. If Orange Phone sales decline, we will definitely raise prices. I believe Mr. Lei can understand this. After all, Orange Phone has so many people, a big family business; we also need to survive, we also need to eat. Doing high-end is good, but it doesn't mean we should abandon the mid-range market."
Chen Pingjiang's attitude was clear.
For Orange Tech, the mobile phone business was its core competitiveness, its lifeline.
This was not something that could be bargained over.
Currently, the Orange S2 was not yet able to achieve global sales, and in terms of brand power and brand image, it still couldn't compare to Apple, placing it in an awkward in-between position.
If it were to be attacked by Xiaomi at this time, it would be very difficult.
Let alone Xiaomi, even if Huawei's Old Ren personally came to Chen Pingjiang to discuss this matter, Chen Pingjiang would not agree.
He was not so saintly as to self-cripple his own industry.
Having a good relationship with Lei Jun, and even admiring him, was personal sentiment. Chen Pingjiang would not use his company to do favors.
Lei Jun, met with a firm refusal, had an expression that was both embarrassed and awkward.
"Indeed, I was presumptuous. I shouldn't have come to discuss such a matter with you."
Chen Pingjiang smiled calmly,
"It's fine. Shall we end our discussion here today? I still have some other matters."
With that, Chen Pingjiang and Lin Bin stood up and left together, ignoring Lei Jun who was still seated.
"Old Lei, I don't know what he was thinking, coming to a competitor to tell them not to lower prices,"
Lin Bin said with a chuckle, shaking his head.
Chen Pingjiang said,
"You're wrong, that's what makes Lei Jun formidable. He came to me so openly, talking about this, perhaps there was still hope for success. If he announced the price on the day of the press conference, I would immediately drop prices and crush Xiaomi."
Lin Bin nodded,
"His price is too disruptive. How should we respond?"
"Firstly, we must acknowledge that Mr. Lei's approach is actually creating market growth, increasing the number of smartphone users. After all, many students or low-income groups still cannot afford Android phones. Our Orange Phone starts at 3299 yuan, which is still too high. I believe that for a long time in the future, the prices of some phone brands will be significantly lowered. This forces us to create even better products and differentiate ourselves from Xiaomi's M1."
Chen Pingjiang continued,
"We'll lower the price of the Orange S1 for him, as for the S2, we'll leave it for now. I estimate that Xiaomi probably hasn't stocked too many units and might even face serious production shortages. When he has no stock, we'll sell normally; when he does have stock, we'll directly cut prices."
Chen Mingjiang had already planned it out.
Either continue to drive down Xiaomi phone prices, because that market segment was originally not what he wanted, or push Leibus towards India.
Originally, Xiaomi wasn't going to India until 2014; now they were being forced to accelerate.
The Xiaomi M1's total sales in 2011 were only 270,000 units, mainly due to insufficient production capacity, so it didn't actually have much impact on Orange Phone.
But Chen Pingjiang still wanted to show the posture of a lion fighting a rabbit.
Don't say Chen Pingjiang was suppressing domestic phone companies; this was just normal commercial competition.
Chen Pingjiang was merely helping Mr. Lei level up.
If Orange Phone had already completely opened up overseas markets, Chen Pingjiang wouldn't care about price cuts.
The current problem was that Orange Phone had not yet entered overseas markets.
If it were stabbed in the back by Xiaomi again, sales would definitely drop significantly, and that was a situation Chen Pingjiang was unwilling to see.
...
On August 16th, Xiaomi held the M1 launch event in BJ's 798 Art Zone.
This was BJ's most bohemian and artistic area, a must-visit for BJ youth and tourists coming to BJ.
Various exhibitions, art lectures, cultural salons, and clothing stores by independent designers, as well as quaint, personalized shops, were held weekly.
Lin Bin couldn't help but smile when he saw the venue.
"This is Lei Jun's style, deliberately choosing such a place for the press conference because his target audience is young people, university students, and youth. It completely avoids us."
Chen Pingjiang also nodded,
"Mr. Lei really has many tricks up his sleeve. This is actually already a differentiation strategy. Our Orange Phone's target users are, firstly, women, and secondly, business people. University students can't be said not to be our user group, but their funds are relatively limited."
A sign was placed on the roadside aisle, which read,
"Xiaomi Phone: High-Performance Enthusiast Phone — Mi Fan Zone."
This shows how well Lei Jun did his marketing; Xiaomi hadn't even released prototypes yet, but forums and everything else were already set up and generating a lot of buzz.
And they had already gained a group of loyal fans, known as Mi Fans.
These people were mainly university students, especially those in BJ.
The press conference venue was not large; at the very back was a row of red brick walls, looking rather dilapidated, yet fitting the artistic style.
When the two walked to the first row, they saw several other founders of Xiaomi.
They were Hong Feng, Wang Chuan, Liu De, Li Wanqiang, and Huang Jiangji.
As for the other two giants.
Heh heh, Lin Bin and Zhou Guangping had long been brought under Chen Pingjiang's wing.
Of course, these few were also not to be underestimated.
For example, Hong Feng later became the father of Xiaomi Robotics and was also responsible for developing Xiaomi's UI.
Huang Jiangji became the chief engineer of Microsoft's engineering institute before he was 30.
As for Li Wanqiang, he was an old hand who had always followed Lei Jun.
Liu De designed the exterior of Xiaomi.
Here, Chen Mingjiang also met Chen Nian, who created Vancl but later lost control of it.
Li Xueling of JOYY also came.
In 2005, Lei Jun took out 2 million US dollars, investing 1 million into JOYY, also known as YY, and lending 1 million to JOYY founder Li Xueling.
Later, JOYY went public, and Lei Jun made a fortune.
In addition, Lakala, the former UC, and the later Nio, etc., were all invested by Lei Jun.
This person had invested in over 400 companies.
Chen Pingjiang once laughed and murmured to himself that Lei Jun seemed more like a reborn person compared to him.
Later, some people on the internet described Lei Jun as "a male protagonist from a 'power fantasy' novel with a system."
Graduating from Wuhan University, completing his credits in two years, he acquired Kingsoft at 28, achieved financial freedom at 37 and began investing everywhere, successfully building Xiaomi phones and Xiaomi cars.
Later, at 54, Lei Jun's wife was his first love, his career was successful, his hair was abundant, his height was 181cm, he had no beer belly, and programmers envied him.
Oh, he was also voted the number one foreign language singer by netizens.
His debut song was "Are You OK?"
Pulling his thoughts, which had drifted somewhere unknown, back, Chen Pingjiang politely shook hands with Chen Nian, Li Xueling, and others.
Chen Nian and Li Xueling were immediately flattered.
Compared to Chen Pingjiang, they were merely small fries; even their boss, Lei Jun, didn't quite measure up.
Lin Bin and Zhou Guangping also met acquaintances and started chatting.
It was conceivable that Lei Jun was too good at marketing and leveraging opportunities.
Chen Pingjiang didn't even need to think; by the end of the day, news of his attendance at the Xiaomi press conference would likely dominate headlines.
At 2 PM, the press conference began.
The lights in the venue dimmed, and a countdown began to play on the small projection screen.
It seemed much less sophisticated than the Orange Phone press conference, but Chen Pingjiang didn't think so; these elements clearly made it more down-to-earth.
After the opening video, Lei Jun, wearing a black top, jeans, and sneakers, walked onto the stage.
After stepping onto the stage, Lei Jun first waved his hand.
"Yesterday, a major event happened; a generation's giant made its curtain call. Today, Xiaomi is like the morning sun, rising bit by bit, let us all witness the beginning of a new era."
A warm round of applause erupted from the audience.
Chen Pingjiang smiled as he listened.
Lei Jun, holding his first press conference, seemed very nervous, his expression extremely unnatural, far from his later composure.
As for his 'flavor,' it hadn't changed at all.
He started by dissing Motorola.
The "yesterday" Lei Jun spoke of was August 15, 2011, the day Google announced its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility.
But just three years later, Google sold Motorola to Lenovo for only $2.9 billion.
The sound of "Hello Moto" faded into the wind from then on.
"Today, we have a special guest in the audience, he is handsomer and more successful than me, known as the 'National God.' He is Mr. Chen Pingjiang—everyone, please welcome him!"
Chen Pingjiang rolled his eyes; this guy was clearly afraid people wouldn't know he was here.
Ultimately, Chen Pingjiang stood up and waved to the back rows.
A round of whistles erupted in the venue.
For a significant portion, Lei Jun introduced the original intention behind Xiaomi and the founding team.
"Our Xiaomi Phone is the second dual-core 1.5 GHz phone in China!"
When Mr. Lei shouted this, Lin Bin also laughed, because the first was the Orange S2.
When it came to the formal introduction of the phone, Chen Pingjiang witnessed Lei's classic comparison method.
For example, when introducing screen sizes, the iPhone 4's 3.5-inch screen and Google's 3.7-inch screen were both brought up for comparison.
"We visited the world's top mobile screen manufacturers, looked at 4-inch, 4.3-inch, and even 5-inch screens. Ultimately, after layers of internal consideration, we chose the 4-inch."
The press conference introduced the battery, operating system, and Xiaomi UI, but dramatically cut MiTalk.
Perhaps due to WeChat's early emergence, the MiTalk project died.
After listening to the introduction, Chen Pingjiang smiled and asked Lin Bin, who was sitting next to him,
"Old Lin, what do you think?"
Lin Bin shook his head,
"Aside from the CPU, nothing else from start to finish can compare to ours. The UI is all copied from us, not to mention our camera functions and HiFi audio. It barely justifies its price. Our Orange S2 only sells for 3299 yuan, and I even feel that's low; that's true value for money. His is just a high-value product at a lower tier."
As soon as he finished speaking, the next second, a price comparison chart appeared on the large screen.
Xiaomi Phone: Dual-core 1.5GHZ, 1GB RAM, 1930mAH battery, 4-inch screen, 8-megapixel camera. Pricing?
HTC: Dual-core 1.2GHZ, 768MB RAM, 1520mAH battery, 4.3-inch screen, 8-megapixel camera. Price: 3575
Samsung Galaxy S2: Dual-core 1.2GHZ, 1GB RAM, 1650mAH battery, 4.3-inch screen, 8-megapixel camera. Price: 4999
Motorola: Dual-core 1.0GHZ, 1GB RAM, 1900mAH battery, 4-inch screen, 8-megapixel camera. Price: 4298
LG: Dual-core 1.0GHZ, 512MB RAM, 1500mAH battery, 4-inch screen, 8-megapixel camera. Price: 2575
As for the Orange S2?
Chen Pingjiang was sitting right there, Lei Jun wouldn't dare put it up for comparison.
Even if Chen Pingjiang wasn't present, Lei Jun wouldn't compare them, because once he did, wouldn't that be helping Orange Phone advertise, even if the effectiveness of that advertisement was questionable?
(End of chapter)