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

Chapter 219 Lei Yijun refuses, Chen Yansen: You don't want to be played like a fool, do you?

In the twilight of February in Yanjing, the sky was dark and the wind was biting.

In the lobby on the first floor of Xiaomi's headquarters, Lei Yijun, Lin Bing, Li Wanqiang, and others frequently looked out.

Unlike Chen Yansen's last visit, this time almost all of Xiaomi's top executives were out waiting downstairs to greet him.

In just one year, Chen Yansen transformed from a leading figure in e-commerce shopping guides into a top performer among internet mobile phone brands.

His importance in Lei Yijun's heart immediately increased several times over.

Lei Yijun gazed at the unmelted snowflakes on the street and fell into deep thought. In his original plan, the sales performance of Xiaomi phones after their launch should be the same as that of Orange phones.

But now Orange phones are far ahead, while Xiaomi can't even beat OPPO, Meizu and Coolpad.
While the total sales of 2 million units seem impressive, Xiaomi's sales have been gradually weakening since the launch of the Orange D1 and Orange C200.

According to market and data department forecasts, the potential upper limit for Xiaomi's first-generation phone is approximately 300 million units.

Simply put, before the major mobile phone manufacturers' autumn product launches, Xiaomi can sell at most another 100 million units.

Therefore, Lei Yijun had to accelerate the pace of launching new products.

"Mr. Lei, Mr. Chen has arrived," Li Wanqiang whispered a reminder.

Lei Yijun snapped out of his daze and looked in the direction Li Wanqiang pointed. Sure enough, he saw Chen Yansen striding towards him, followed by Gao Weilin, CFO of Senlian Capital, and Song Yuncheng, Director of Key Accounts at Pinbei.

He quickly composed himself and greeted him with a smile: "I'm sorry, Mr. Chen, I really couldn't get away last night. I'll make the arrangements for tonight."

"Mr. Lei, you're too kind. Don't make such a big fuss next time, or I won't dare to come again."

Chen Yansen joked, while nodding to Lin Bing, Li Wanqiang and others as a greeting.

"Mr. Chen is a distinguished guest of Xiaomi, so I dare not neglect him."

Lei Yijun said with a smile.

His right cheek was less swollen than yesterday, but there were still obvious red and swollen marks.

Chen Yansen noticed it as soon as they met, and although he found it amusing, he didn't show it.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, the group took the elevator to Lei Yijun's office.

Chen Yansen sat down and asked, "When does Xiaomi plan to launch the M2?"

On the first working day after the Lunar New Year, Xiaomi's marketing department released concept images of the M2, but apart from the 500-megapixel front camera and the 1200-megapixel rear camera, no other information was revealed.

Lei Yijun looked at Chen Yansen and saw that the other party looked calm. He sighed and said, "The appearance of the Xiaomi M2 has not yet been finalized. In fact, I did not plan to launch a new product so soon."

The implication is that they were forced into this situation by Orange Technology.

"It's good to launch it sooner. Smartphones are the mainstream of the future, and having more products means taking up more market share."

Chen Yansen naturally understood the subtext in Lei Yijun's words and smiled as he spoke.

"When Mr. Chen mentioned cooperation yesterday, was he referring to the memory cleanup algorithm used in the Aurora OS 1.3 system?"

Seeing that Chen Yansen was hesitant to get to the point, Lei Yijun cut to the chase and asked.

"The licensing of this patent is also negotiable, but the main purpose of my meeting with Mr. Lei today is to secure OEM orders for Xiaomi phones."

Chen Yansen said frankly.

Once the No. 3 Shenzhen factory and the No. 4 Luzhou factory are put into production, the production capacity will far exceed the current sales volume of Orange phones.

To ensure the stability of workers' income and the utilization rate of production lines, finding OEM orders is the best option.

Lei Yijun was stunned. He had imagined many possibilities, but he never expected that Chen Yansen would want to ask him for Xiaomi's OEM orders.

He subconsciously frowned, looking troubled.

Xiaomi's current OEM manufacturer is Inventec, the same as Foxconn, both being electronics manufacturing plants from Taiwan. The yield rate and OEM price are within Lei Yijun's acceptable range.

According to data from Q4 of last year, Xiaomi's return rate was only 1.5%, which is enough to show that Inventec has stable production quality and excellent product delivery capabilities in the OEM field.

Even if Lei Yijun had a strong heart, he wouldn't dare to risk handing over Xiaomi's OEM orders to a competitor.

If, at a crucial moment, Orange Phone Factory stabs Xiaomi in the back, Xiaomi will suffer a huge loss.

Thinking of this, Lei Yijun shook his head and said:
“Mr. Chen, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but Xiaomi’s OEM price is not high. Including the cost of SMT placement, testing, assembly and packaging, it’s only 32 yuan per unit. After deducting equipment depreciation and labor costs, there is only a profit of 4-5 yuan per unit.”

His point was clear: even if Orange Phone Factory took on all the orders for Xiaomi phones, given Xiaomi's sales volume, they would only earn a little over 2000 million yuan a year.

In order to refuse Chen Yansen, Lei Yijun even revealed Inventec's OEM pricing standards.

"I do not mind."

Chen Yansen said calmly.

But I mind!
Lei Yijun chuckled to himself, wanting to shout, "We're competitors!"

Outsourcing the production of Xiaomi phones to Orange Factory is tantamount to standing naked in front of competitors.

At that time, Xiaomi's core industrial and hardware design solutions will be fully exposed.

"President Chen, this cooperation is not negotiable," Lei Yijun said firmly.

"If Mr. Lei agrees, I can license a better memory cleaning algorithm patent to Xiaomi, thereby alleviating the lag and overheating issues of Xiaomi phones," Chen Yansen said with a smile, revealing his bargaining chip.

Upon hearing this, Lei Yijun's face showed a fleeting look of embarrassment. He knew that what Chen Yansen said was true, but the truth is often the most painful.

To be honest, he had long coveted Aurora OS's memory cleanup algorithm.

He had tried both the Orange C2 and Orange D1 phones, especially the Orange D1, which was equipped with a MediaTek MT6573 processor and 512MB of RAM. After six hours of heavy use, although it would get hot and the system would lag, its performance was slightly better than that of Xiaomi phones.

It's worth noting that Xiaomi easily outperforms the Orange D1 in both processor and memory configuration.

This demonstrates that Aurora OS's management and allocation of hardware resources, as well as its memory and battery management, far surpasses Xiaomi's MIUI system.

"President Chen, although we have a good personal relationship, I really can't agree to this when it comes to the company's core interests. It's like we both sell steamed buns, and you want me to hand over the filling recipe and hand over all production to you, while I only take care of selling them. Is that reasonable?"

Lei Yijun resisted the temptation and replied with a wry smile.

"What filling recipe does Xiaomi have?"

Chen Yansen was slightly taken aback and couldn't help but complain in his heart.

Perhaps a decade or two from now, Xiaomi will have some patents in 5G, WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, camera hardware design, image signal processing, and photography algorithms.

But it was 2012, and Xiaomi was just starting out. What could he possibly covet?
"In that case, forget it." Chen Yansen smiled nonchalantly, since there were other mobile phone manufacturers such as Meizu, OPPO, Coolpad, and Newman as alternatives anyway.

Seeing this, Lei Yijun breathed a sigh of relief and quickly changed the subject, saying, "It seems that Nokia's era is coming to an end. Last year, it ranked second in smartphone shipments in China, but this month it has fallen to seventh place."

“Every era has its king. The next one might be Apple, or Huawei, or of course, Xiaomi.”

Chen Yansen shrugged and said casually.

"Didn't Orange Technology ever think of becoming the king?" Lei Yijun was taken aback for a moment, then asked with a smile.

"Orange Technology's goal is to cultivate more trend-setting, leading brands like Nokia."

Chen Yansen raised his eyelids slightly and answered in a flat tone.

Lei Yijun chuckled, thinking to himself: Why does this kid talk like that?
Chen Yansen's words reminded him of last year's Internet Open Conference, where Ma Liyun of Ali said on the spot: "Ali's mission is to cultivate more people."

Lin Bing and Li Wanqiang exchanged glances, understanding what Chen Yansen meant.

Orange Technology doesn't consider Xiaomi a competitor!
Isn't this looking down on people?

Although Orange phones sold over 1000 million units last year, Xiaomi also sold 200 million.

To put it bluntly, your Orange phone doesn't have an overwhelming advantage!

Lei Yijun sensed the atmosphere was a bit tense, so he deliberately glanced at the time. It was exactly 5:30, so he quickly said, "President Chen, let's go eat first."

"No, I have plans tonight. Maybe another time."

After Chen Yansen finished speaking, he stood up and prepared to leave.

Lei Yijun's face stiffened. He forced a smile, suppressed his anger, and politely saw Chen Yansen out of the building.

Only after the car drove away did Lei Yijun turn around and walk back to the company with a sullen face.

"Ah Li, what do you think?" Back in the office, Lei Yijun turned to Li Wanqiang and asked with a frown.

“Mr. Lei, I think we can agree. To be honest, Orange Technology’s technology far surpasses Xiaomi’s in both hardware and software. So, I don’t think Chen Yansen has any deep-seated ideas,” Li Wanqiang said tactfully.

"Are there really such pure businessmen?" Lei Yijun asked rhetorically, clearly not believing it.

"The Orange Mobile Phone factory in Shenzhen pays its general workers a base salary of 2640 yuan, and overtime pay is paid in full accordance with the labor law. The average monthly income of workers can reach more than 7000 yuan. He is a young man, and it is indeed easy for him to be idealistic."

Li Wanqiang explained with a smile.

"A person who is too idealistic can never amass a fortune of tens of billions," Lei Yijun scoffed.

He started in the software industry and then entered the mobile phone industry. He knows better than anyone the true nature of the owners of domestic electronics factories.

"Although it's unclear why Chen Yansen doesn't outsource the production process to contract manufacturers, as far as I know, Orange Phone's third factory is about to start production, and he wants to secure Xiaomi's contract manufacturing orders. The logic behind this is understandable."

"Therefore, I agree with Ali's view and can choose to trust Chen Yansen and Orange Technology."

Lin Bing, who had been silent until now, suddenly interjected.

Lei Yijun looked up and carefully observed their expressions. After receiving their affirmative reply, he began to think seriously.

He knew that Lin Bing and Li Wanqiang hadn't said something else: if Xiaomi didn't agree, Chen Yansen might turn around and seek cooperation with 360, Meizu, and OPPO. With this shift in power, Xiaomi's phone sales would inevitably be affected.

After all, piling up materials doesn't involve much technology; Xiaomi's biggest advantage now is the MIUI system.

If what Chen Yansen said is true, he doesn't care about software technology patents and will license the Aurora OS operating system, memory cleaning algorithm, and battery management technology to other mobile phone manufacturers.

Then Xiaomi's situation will become even more difficult!

Lei Yijun fell into deep thought. He was not a manager who would not listen to advice, but Lin Bing and Li Wanqiang's persuasion made him waver.

the other side.

After leaving Xiaomi headquarters, Chen Yansen immediately dialed an unknown number: "6:30, Mayor of Jingzhao, you don't want to be played like a fool, do you?"

(End of this chapter)