I can become stronger by paying salaries. I have one billion employees!

Chapter 190 3999 yuan? That's way too expensive! I think it's expensive too! (Seeking monthly votes)
Virtual City, Sky Garden, Orange Mobile New Product Launch.

As soon as Wang Teng finished speaking, the flashbulbs in the media area started flashing incessantly, and the cameras were pointed at the big screen, where the price of 799 yuan was extremely eye-catching.

"799 yuan?"

Yu Chendong from Huawei was slightly taken aback, his mouth agape, his mind a complete mess.

The Motorola XT883, with similar specifications, was launched last August. It also features a 4-inch screen, 512MB of RAM, and 8GB of ROM, with a starting price of 1499 yuan.

Although the Orange D1 uses a MediaTek MT6573 processor, which is only a 650MHz single-core processor, it is somewhat inferior to the 1GHz processor in the Motorola XT883.

However, the Orange D1 is priced at only half that of the Motorola XT883.

With this configuration and price, the Orange D1 will be unrivaled in the mid-to-low-end market.

Yu Chendong silently estimated the material costs in his mind. Even if DST stepped in and helped Orange Technology optimize the supply chain prices, the hardware cost of Orange D1 would still be at least 400 to 450 yuan.

Adding in the costs of research and development, sales, after-sales service, transportation, and management, the gross profit margin of this phone is at most 10%.

It seems that Orange Technology is determined to go all the way down this path. I thought that Orange C1 was just using a low-price strategy to grab market share by bringing down the configurations of 2999 yuan and 3999 yuan to 1999 yuan.

Once they have established a foothold, they will launch new products with higher gross margins.

However, Yu Chendong did not see this trend in the pricing of Orange D1.

After a moment of contemplation, Huang Zhang of Meizu relaxed his furrowed brows. The Meizu MX was priced at 2999 yuan, which was not in the same price range as the Orange D1, and its configuration was far superior to that of the Orange D1, so he was naturally not worried.

On the other hand, Chen Yongming of OPPO and Guo Yingde of Coolpad looked troubled. The launch of the Orange D1 would inevitably have a severe impact on the mid-to-low-end models of both companies.

With phones of similar specifications, the two companies sell them for around 1500 yuan, while Orange Technology only charges 799 yuan. How can they compete?

The two men glared at Wang Teng, their teeth itching with anger.

Lei Yijun silently glanced around, taking in the complex expressions on the faces of his competitors. Then he turned his gaze to Chen Yansen, who had a calm expression, and couldn't help but ask, "President Chen, the price of the Orange D1 is too low. You're forcing Coolpad, Lenovo, and ZTE to lower their prices. That's too ruthless."

Too low?

Too harsh?

Chen Yansen smiled, thinking to himself: When you were using Redmi phones to grab the terminal market, you didn't care about the fate of your competitors.

“Mr. Lei, we’re all industry insiders. You can calculate the material costs of the Orange D1. Last year, smartphone shipments exceeded 8000 million units, more than double that of 2010. The procurement prices of screens, chips, batteries, cameras, casings, and circuit boards are all decreasing. We can still make a profit at 799 yuan.”

Chen Yansen answered slowly and deliberately.

After hearing this, Lei Yijun shook his head helplessly, not knowing what else to say.

After all, in the eyes of Chen Yongming, Guo Yingde, and Yu Chendong, he and Chen Yansen were all the same kind of troublemakers in the mobile phone industry.

The two men's business strategies are very similar: they both proactively reduce the gross profit margin of hardware, exchange volume for market share, and then use the advantages of scale to make money from the software aspect.

The gross profit margin for hardware is generally between 5% and 10%.

What Lei Yijun didn't know was that Orange Technology, leveraging DST's network and its shipment volume of 1125 million units, negotiated with manufacturers such as MediaTek, Eastcom, and Desay and obtained a lower purchase price.

In fact, the material cost of Orange D1 is only 390 yuan.

At this moment, Wang Teng on stage pressed a remote control, and the large screen behind him immediately switched the image.

The large CG image of the Orange D1 has disappeared, replaced by a new smartphone with an ultra-large screen and ultra-thin design.

"Orange C2! Continuing the ultra-high performance of its predecessor, it is only 8.6 mm thick and has a bezel width of only 3.9 mm. Like Orange C1, it adopts global gesture operation."

It features a Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260 dual-core processor and a 4.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen, offering faster response times and lower power consumption.

Wang Teng then announced the name of the second new product.

The background image then rotates, showing the thickness and border width, with a standing coin as a reference.

In terms of screen selection, the Orange C2 uses a more powerful AMOLED screen, which is the latest product launched by Di Dongfang at the end of the year, and is comparable to Shanxing's Super AMOLED Plus touch screen.

Despite having a lower yield rate than Sansei and significantly higher production costs, T&D still offered a supply price of 260 yuan per piece in order to secure the order from Orange Technology.

It's even 10-20 yuan cheaper per tablet than Shanxing.

The material cost of the screen alone is equivalent to that of a Snapdragon MSM8260 chip.

Upon hearing this, Lei Yijun instantly understood that Orange Technology had finally set its sights on the high-end market.

"The standard version features 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, supports 1080p full HD video playback and recording, has a 1600-megapixel rear camera, a 500-megapixel front camera, runs Aurora OS 1.3, has a 2620mAh battery, and supports fast charging."

Wang Teng added further.

From an engineering perspective, he explained in detail the principles of Orange Technology's fast charging technology from an industrial design standpoint. To ensure the safety and stability of the fast charging process, a charging management system and protection mechanisms have been added, such as overvoltage protection, overcurrent protection, overheat protection, and short circuit protection.

Wang Teng spoke sincerely, and when discussing the unique technical patents of Orange Mobile, he would talk about everything from solution design to product implementation, which naturally gave users a strong sense of trust.

In terms of design, the Orange C2 is just as good-looking as the HTC One X and Sony LT26i, and even more technologically advanced than the Apple 4S.

When talking about the Aurora OS 1.3 operating system, Wang Teng spoke at length, after all, it was the result of his team's hard work over the past six months.

"This kid has a lot of hidden agendas."

Chen Yansen muttered to himself.

A smartphone involves a vast and complex industrial and technological chain, from hardware to software, much like a skyscraper.

Although he wanted to abandon the communication technology patents of Microsoft, Qualcomm and Nokia, Orange Technology had no alternatives in China.

Although Chen Yansen has a strong learning ability, he can only learn slowly.

Without his product solutions, the Aurora OS 1.3 system, fast battery charging, memory cleaning algorithms, AI photography and imaging technologies, as well as hardware design, would have taken at least another year and a half to realize.

After all, companies like Qualcomm, Samsung, Ericsson, Nokia, and Motorola have accumulated over two decades of technology patents in the communications and mobile phone fields.

Orange Technology, on the other hand, has been established for less than a year.

Chen Yansen squinted, his mind racing with plans for the New Year.

He didn't intend to achieve instant success, but with his extraordinary mental strength, coupled with ample funding and R&D personnel, he could focus on one area, such as the operating system or a core component, and definitely reach the top level in the industry in a very short time.

He didn't want to hand over most of the profits to someone else. Just as he was pondering this, Wang Teng announced the offering price of '3999 yuan'.

The price of Orange Technology's mainstream models has increased by 2000 yuan, from 1999 yuan to 3999 yuan.

This was hard for the fans in the audience to accept. At 1999 yuan, everyone was still friends; at 3999 yuan, there was a sense of distance.

Yu Chendong and the others grinned, thinking: Chen Yansen is a businessman after all, how could he keep selling products that don't make money?

The price of 3999 yuan greatly reduced their financial burden.

Frankly speaking, with the configuration of the Orange C2, the material cost alone is close to 1800 yuan. If it were Meizu, HTC, or Shanxing, the price would definitely be between 3500 and 4500 yuan.

The YY Live staff in the audience glanced at the comment section subconsciously; it was filled with messages and a chorus of curses.

"Ha! They were just saying they wanted to make cell phones affordable for everyone, and now they're getting cocky!"

"3999 yuan? How dare Orange Technology!"

"Damn it! Without our support, would Orange Technology have gotten to where it is today?"

"Shady businessman! Bah! I'd rather buy a Mountain Star!"

Clearly, the price of 3999 yuan exceeded many people's expectations.

Even though they knew perfectly well that the Orange C2 was a flagship-level device, with a deeply optimized Aurora OS 1.3 operating system and fast charging capabilities, making it perfectly reasonable to sell for 3999 yuan, it didn't stop them from cursing.

"Too expensive, isn't it?"

Wang Teng smiled faintly, then answered his own question: "I think so too. The average worker at the Orange Mobile phone factory earns 7000 yuan a month before tax, but buying an Orange phone requires half a month's salary, which is very unreasonable."

How many?

A monthly salary of 7000 yuan?
The chat in the YY live stream suddenly stopped, and everyone's brains seemed to freeze.

In 2012, most college graduates had a starting salary of only 3000 yuan, or even less.

To earn a monthly salary of 7000 yuan, you need two things: first, a bachelor's degree from a top university; and second, a popular major.

Now Wang Teng actually said that an ordinary worker at the Orange Mobile Phone Factory earns 7000 yuan a month.

What was the point of them studying so hard for more than ten years?
Do you love learning?

Many college students in the live stream were deeply moved and immediately typed their replies in the chat: "Mr. Wang, could you please take back what you said? A friend of mine saw it and was very upset."

"My friend is too!"

"Me too!"

Wang Teng naturally couldn't see the comments in the live stream. He paused and said, "I also think it's expensive, and I can't afford it, so after careful consideration, I've decided to lower the price to 2699 yuan!"

The audience at the press conference and in the live broadcast room were stunned, not expecting that they could pull off a price reduction.

This approach is so unconventional that it caught competitors and fans off guard.

Even Lei Yijun didn't expect that such a thing could be done at the new product launch.

"That's a good move, I'll learn it later," Lei Yijun thought to himself.

The price has been reduced from 3999 yuan to 2699 yuan, a reduction of 1300 yuan.

The atmosphere at the venue immediately became lively, and many potential users began to consider replacing their phones.

After the discussion among the audience gradually subsided, Wang Teng and others announced that the price of the 32GB version was 2999 yuan and the 64GB version was 3499 yuan.

Huang Zhang, who had been calm, panicked. Meizu launched the MX on New Year's Day, which was priced higher than the Orange C2 but had lower specifications. How was he supposed to compete?
Xu Zhenhui and his secretary sat in the front row. Although he didn't understand mobile phones and business, he could tell from the feedback that the Orange C2 would definitely sell well in the future.

On Weibo, many netizens gathered in the comment sections of Orange Phone and Chen Yansen, discussing the configuration, price and other information of Orange D1 and Orange C2.

Meanwhile, the press conference was drawing to a close.

On the Orange Mall homepage, the activity entry for the Orange D1 and Orange C2 engineering versions finally popped up.

Sales will begin promptly at 12:00.

With only 300 units of each phone model in stock, even with restrictions on user level, IP address, and shipping address, they still sold out in minutes.

Finally, Wang Teng announced that the official release date for Orange D1 and Orange C2 is January 14th, at which time they will be delivered to customers' homes by Yunsu Express.

At a press conference, Wang Teng promoted three companies under Senlian.

To Chen Yansen's surprise, the trending topics about Orange's new products were actually overshadowed by Orange Mobile Phone Factory.

"Really? A monthly salary of 7000 yuan? These phone manufacturers just love to brag all day long."

“My cousin works at the Orange Mobile Phone factory, making 6000 to 7000 yuan a month. In October, he earned almost 8000 yuan. To be honest, it was all thanks to working overtime.”

"I knew it! There's no such thing as a magical factory!"

But as workers from the Orange Phone factory appeared in the comments section to share their work experiences, netizens gradually learned about it.

Orange Mobile Phone Factory operates on a six-hour workday.

Meals and accommodation included!

Overtime pay is 1.5 times the normal rate on weekdays, 2 times on weekends, and 3 times on holidays!
Employees who are literate and quick-witted will have the opportunity to learn in the repair department. Once they are promoted, they can become after-sales engineers and earn more than 10,000 yuan a month. Their work will also be much easier.

This prompted netizens to exclaim, "Only 10 hours a day? I work 12 hours a day now and I don't even get overtime pay!"

Many people are joking about going to Shenzhen to "fix screws," some are just kidding, and some genuinely want to go.

Following the press conference was a luncheon to express gratitude.

The invited guests did not leave until 3 p.m.

After seeing Lei Yijun and the others off, Chen Yansen turned around and went back to the hotel, where he and Ye Qiuping went into a private room on the top floor.

(End of this chapter)