Tech startup: I really do make mobile phones!

Chapter 196 Westward and Eastward Expansion
Stepping into the general manager's office at Orange Technology, sunlight streams in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, creating a clear Tyndall effect beam among the decorative stones in the huge acrylic fish tank, with bits of freeze-dried rabbit meat floating on the surface.

Just as a golden flash appeared in the beam of light, it was suddenly grabbed by a giant white claw that emerged from the water.
"Manager Mi! No!"

After entering the room, Chen Mo sat down on the sofa in the reception area and quietly watched Zhou Yumeng "physically discourage" fishing master Xiao Mi.

"Finally caught you!"

With a look of both helplessness and doting affection, Zhou Yumeng carefully carried the now-slender Xiaomi away from the expensive seawater aquarium.

The golden tang that was rescued from the tank was still in shock and had already hidden deep in the planted aquascape.

Noticing that Chen Mo had already arrived at the office and had been quietly watching her for a while, Zhou Yumeng immediately scolded Xiaomi in a gentle tone: "Xiaomi! How many times have I warned you? You're not allowed to fish for President Chen!" She also secretly observed Chen Mo's expression out of the corner of her eye.

As for Xiaomi, who was being criticized, she just let out a lazy meow, found a comfortable position in her arms, and didn't take the scolding seriously at all.

Chen Mo smiled, said nothing more, got up and went back to his desk to sit down.

Zhou Yumeng immediately took Xiaomi and ran away!

Now, only Chen Mo remains in the office.

Thanks to Mr. Lin's reminder, he has now developed the habit of quickly browsing important domestic and international news before handling company affairs.

In the international section, the headline, "Blake Announces Strategic Shift Eastward, Using TPP as Spear and Austrian Troops as Shield," reflects the straightforwardness typical of North American media.

In contrast, the reports from domestic official media were much more subtle: "Double Changes in Foreign Exchange Reserves: The Central Bank Announces Reduction in Some International Bonds and Increase in Gold Holdings."

"Ok?"

Chen Mo's gaze sharpened as he looked closely.

This marks the first large-scale reduction of North American bonds by domestic investors since 2001. From July to September, $300 billion was sold off, leaving approximately $1.1 trillion remaining, making China still the largest holder of North American bonds.

A knowing smile appeared on Chen Mo's lips; he could almost picture Blake's face darkening even more.

The healthcare, insurance, and new energy promises made to voters by the opposing side—aren't they all maintained by issuing bonds like crazy?

His biggest creditor reduced its holdings by $300 billion from July to September, which should give him a headache for a while.

Simply put, the two sides couldn't reach an agreement before, and there were significant differences.

North American Black has no intention of playing the WTO game anymore and plans to create a new group called the TPP. He also wants to send troops to Australia to threaten his biggest creditor.

The creditors aren't to be trifled with either. If you dare to go it alone and bypass me, I'll dump the entire market! I can't guarantee anything else, but one thing is for sure: you have no chance of being re-elected as the next president of North America!

Chen Mo immediately realized that due to the ongoing power struggle between North America and China, as well as the collapse of the Hillary Clinton debt crisis in New York, the international gold market would experience a thrilling rollercoaster ride.

He remembered clearly that he had to thank that joke from his previous life, which said that the middle-aged women in China who were "buying the dip" in gold unexpectedly taught the Wall Street tycoons who were shorting gold a good lesson.

The actual situation is, of course, more complex, involving central bank strategic hedging, safe-haven demand following the Great East Japan Earthquake, and turmoil in the Middle East. The combined effect of these factors has pushed up gold prices, putting considerable pressure on North America.

You should know that when gold prices rise, US Treasury bonds are no longer a worthwhile investment!
"What a pity," Chen Mo shook his head gently.

This opportunity, involving huge amounts of capital and international competition, is visible but intangible. The main reason is that Chen Mo doesn't currently have a professional investment institution to help him operate large-scale gold futures. Even with his memories from his previous life as a reference, he can only remain an outsider.

Then he looked at the business news.

The headline, "Spending a whopping $29 billion to acquire Motorola! Dreaming of a leadership change and aiming for the top three global mobile phone brands," is particularly eye-catching.

Motorola, the undisputed king of the feature phone era, has finally met its end.

Fantasy and Google have joined forces, planning to break it up over a three-year transition period.

Fantasy took over the mobile phone business unit and approximately 3000 smartphone patents (including the Mota brand and foldable screen technology), and moved production lines to the domestic market and Argentina to operate as its sub-brand.

As a result, Fantasy's market share in North America soared to 9%, placing it among the top ten in the North American market.

Meanwhile, Google acquired Motorola's core 2.5 2G/3G communication patents for $125 billion (cash + stock) to enrich the Android system's patent library and defend against Apple's patent offensive.

"That's quite a generous gesture!" Chen Mo exclaimed to himself.

Google's investment in building its Android patent portfolio is astronomical.

The Chrysanthemum Red Alliance system, which has been criticized by many in later generations, is often described as an "open source reskin" system, but it avoids mentioning the key patent issues. If it were really possible to simply reskin an open source system, other manufacturers would have done it long ago. The root cause lies in the fact that the communication patents used by the system are blocked!

Chrysanthemum possesses a reserve of 2G/3G/4G and a large number of 5G communication patents. It is through cross-licensing of these patents that it has the confidence and conditions to develop its own system.

This also made Chen Mo think that if the mobile phone system developed by the black technology system in the future were to enter the market, it would definitely have to go through those densely packed 2/3/4/5G communication patents!

The base stations built by the telecom operators use these communication patents. It's ridiculous that your phone's system doesn't support them!
So when Chen Mo thought of this, he suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.

This means that if Orange wants its self-developed mobile phone system to be commercially available, it needs to lay out 5G communication patents in advance and play the cross-licensing game. Otherwise, it should prepare to follow the example of players like Google and Apple, who have no accumulation at all, and engage in sky-high patent acquisitions!
平果的IOS系统，2G/3G通讯专利是45亿美刀收购的北美北电网（nortel），4G是每年交约30亿美刀的“高桶税”，5G是和菊花交叉授权来的。

Even Ali Cloud OS's 2G/3G services were obtained through FRAND terms, paying for short-term licenses from Huawei and ChinaSat.

Telecommunications manufacturers have a natural advantage in developing mobile operating systems due to their telecommunications patents, while it's much more difficult for terminal manufacturers to develop operating systems. They either have to buy telecommunications patents or cross-licensing from other sectors into telecommunications.
Looking at the news, Chen Mo couldn't help but sigh: This crossover is too outrageous! I'm just a mobile phone manufacturer!
At the same time, he had another idea: why not take advantage of this gold futures rally to make some money and save it for future patent purchases for his self-developed system?
Chen Mo shook his head. Developing a self-developed system was still a long way off, so there was no need to worry unnecessarily.

Another piece of news about the supply chain was much more low-key: the acquisition of A124, the leading battery manufacturer in North America.

Wanxiang Group originally planned to acquire 80% of its shares for US$4.6 million and assume US$7.5 million in debt, but the plan was rejected by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFLUS).

After commissioning a professional public relations firm in North America to manage the project, the plan was changed to a bankruptcy auction. Wanxiang Group ultimately won the bid for $2.5 million, defeating North American Senjiang Automation, Japanese NEC, and German Siemens. The A124 R&D team and production line were split in two, with one part remaining in North America and the other being moved back to China.

"Openly repair the plank road while secretly crossing the Chencang pass!" Chen Mo muttered to himself.

The global smart terminal and battery industry chain is accelerating its concentration and improvement in China through various overt and covert means.

After reading the news, Chen Mo pressed button 9 on the internal landline.

A moment later, Zhou Yumeng walked in carrying a stack of documents.

"Mr. Chen, these are the third-quarter reports from the various subsidiaries of the Orange Group."

First, here is the report card of "Chengbao Mobile Internet".

App Store's market share has declined, from a peak of 82.5% to 68.2%, but its total number of users is soaring.

The reason is simple: as of September this year, the number of Android smartphone users in China has surged by 72 million, a growth rate of 309%.

The three tech giants, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (BTA), saw the huge traffic entrance in the mobile application market and entered the market aggressively. Baidu Mobile Assistant, Tencent App Assistant, and PP Assistant (owned by Ali Holdings) all came to grab a piece of the pie.

However, Orange Treasure's "three-in-one" ecosystem moat has been initially established: application distribution platform, advertising distribution platform, and electronic payment platform.

Once an application uploaded by a developer is approved, the developer can earn revenue through in-app purchases (Orange Pay takes a 30% cut) or platform advertising distribution (CPM/CPC model).

For small apps without in-app purchases, a single ad display can generate 0.1 to 0.3 yuan in revenue. As long as Orange App doesn't easily encroach on the pre-installation fees of mobile hardware manufacturers and avoids premature direct conflict with terminal manufacturers, it can maintain its leading position in the domestic Android third-party app market by leveraging the Matthew effect.

Currently, the app has approximately 6500 million users and has a very promising future.

Orange Browser has 620 million users and a market share of 25.2%, ranking second in the industry, second only to VC Browser (28%).

It's worth mentioning that BTA (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) has also started to exert its strength in the mobile browser market, with Baidu Browser and QChat Browser already under Alibaba's control.

Yes! Ali rarely develops things himself. Whether it's PP Assistant or VC Browser, he basically takes control, drains the traffic, and then lets it run its course.

Finally, Orange Payment is in a somewhat awkward position. Although it is one of the first six private enterprises to hold a payment license, 85% of its monthly transaction volume of 22.5 billion yuan comes from internal Orange Group business, while real external user payment transactions account for only 15%. Its share of the third-party online payment market is about 0.15%, ranking at the bottom.

However, Orange Pay is steadily improving its payment conversion rate under the integrated app, wallet, and payment model, with approximately 35% of its daily active users using it for in-game purchases, indicating huge potential for growth.

In the third quarter, Orange Treasure's total revenue was 1.0125 million yuan. After deducting approximately 31.9% of application subsidies and operating costs, the net profit was approximately 6895 million yuan.

"He Jian did a great job!"

Chen Mo nodded in satisfaction. It wasn't for nothing that he had gone to great lengths to help him get the payment license. However, the man was a bit dishonest, and he still needed to be wary of him.

Zhou Yumeng flipped through her notebook and added, "President Chen, Mr. Zhang from ByteDance plans to launch a Series A funding round next month. He wants to develop another news platform that combines text and images. Should we co-invest?"

Chen Mo pondered for a moment.

"Go ahead! Have Lin Junfeng handle it! Remember the agreement we signed before: before the IPO, Orange must hold at least 33.4% of ByteDance's shares!"

"In addition," Zhou Yumeng continued, "President Zhang hopes to bring in a strong foreign institution to prepare for future overseas expansion. He would like to ask if you have any suitable recommendations?"

Chen Mo raised an eyebrow, not expecting Zhang Yiming to have started planning overseas so early.

In its previous life, ByteDance's Series C funding round was facilitated by Zhang Yiming's connection with Zhou Shouzi, who introduced his former employer, Goldman Sachs, to participate in the investment. Subsequently, with the help of Goldman Sachs' public relations and vetting services, Yangdou was able to successfully enter the American and European markets under a different name by acquiring Musicel.ly.

“You reply to him, and I can try to contact Morgan Stanley for him and ask for his opinion! If it works out, I can invite someone from Morgan Stanley to come and discuss it during the Series A round in October!” Chen Mo decided.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are both top investment banks on Wall Street, and their influence on North American institutions is roughly equal. However, Goldman Sachs is more high-profile in its public appearances, while Morgan Stanley is more low-profile behind the scenes.

Switching to Morgan Stanley shouldn't affect Yangdou's overseas expansion schedule.

Zhou Yumeng quickly wrote it down.

Next up are Far Orange and Orange Family.

Far Orange continues to develop rapidly in the field of electronic batteries, but its core honeycomb power battery has not yet won large-scale market orders.

The most advanced 3.1 generation gaseous lithium battery is currently only being procured stably by the Dajiang Qingling 1st generation UAV, with approximately 10 units purchased per month.

"The task ahead is arduous and the road is long!" Chen Mo sighed.

Orange Technology reached an agreement with the Aerospace Group to transfer the technology and patents of the MYT-3.0 high-precision gyroscope for a licensing fee of 10 billion yuan. The agreement stipulated that the other party could only use it for its own purposes, and any secondary licensing required Orange's consent.

Chen Mo doesn't need to worry too much about Orange Science for now; he can just let Director Feng and Zhou Mingzhe develop it step by step.

Chen Mo asked Zhou Yumeng to contact Zeng Baifang, known as "Millionaire Brother" of the Smart Procurement Group, and ask him to help Yuancheng promote its latest third-generation Class 1 booster battery.

"Although the cost is a bit higher, it will definitely be a selling point for flagship phones! Especially since that hydrogen-based gaseous lithium company in North America has been quiet lately, I guess they failed to commercialize it, and now is the perfect time for us to seize the high-end market!"

Only by spreading R&D costs through the high-end market can advanced technologies gradually become cheaper and benefit more people.

As for why Orange doesn't make high-end phones?

Firstly, brand recognition is insufficient, and secondly, technological reserves (currently mainly relying on batteries and motion-sensing interaction) are not enough to support Orange in making a flagship phone.

After handling various matters of the subsidiary in the morning, Chen Mo listened to the quarterly report from the senior executives of Orange Technology in Conference Room 2 in the afternoon.

He first asked Zhao Tiezhu from the marketing department: "Tiezhu, how is the progress of the western flagship store and those 50 directly operated stores?"

Zhao Tiezhu reported, "Brother Chen, Lin Xiaoxia has divided her 'Twelve Warriors' into three groups: site selection, decoration, and procurement. She is personally overseeing the Lancheng flagship store. Currently, 40 directly operated stores have been established, with daily sales of approximately 2000 units. Those twelve people have accumulated 1200 hours of overtime in three months and have also recommended six candidates for provincial regional store managers!"

"Lin Xiaoxia's team has done a great job these past three months!" Chen Mo praised. "Let's give them a performance bonus as encouragement!"

Gong Yun from the logistics department then gave her report, mentioning it with a light laugh.

“Mr. Chen, after the 1.55 million yuan money market fund (T+0) matured early last year, I temporarily invested 1500 million yuan of it in a trust lending business, but encountered legal risks and the investment was frozen. Now the other party has proposed a debt-to-equity swap, and I may need Attorney Lin's cooperation to go to Hong Kong to handle it.”

Wang Kai's investigation revealed that the 1500 million yuan investment return had "disappeared," which had made Chen Mo resentful towards Gong Yun. Now, he suddenly realized that it was just a misunderstanding, and he immediately let go of his burden, a relieved smile appearing on his face.

"I see! That's good, that's good!"

Since starting his business, Chen Mo's biggest fear has been that the people he trusts most might run into trouble.

He was willing to give Zhao Tiezhu and Gong Yun 1% of Orange's shares every year (up to 10%) because he didn't want to owe them anything, but it also meant that if a problem really arose, he had to be ruthless in dealing with it.

Now that the misunderstanding has been cleared up, Chen Mo felt much more at ease.

Some of the other executives present were puzzled. They were not even sure if they could get the 1500 million yuan debt-to-equity swap back, so why did President Chen look so happy?
Seeing Chen Mo's instantly relaxed expression, Gong Yun lowered her eyes and smiled slightly, then asked again, "I hope Mr. Chen will approve my business trip!"

"Great! Approved! Of course approved!" Chen Mo was in a great mood and said without much thought, "Sister Gong, I'm giving you a special one-week, no, two-week business trip! Go to Hong Kong to take care of things, and while you're at it, have some fun and relax! The company has been so lucky to have you here for the past year!"

Over the past year, Chen Mo has spent most of his time away from the company, with Gong Yun taking the lead in the rear, shouldering the heavy responsibility of the daily operations of the Orange Group's central hub.

At this moment, he sincerely hoped that his capable assistant could relax a bit.

Afterwards, Jiang Yu from the Technology Department suggested officially launching the development of Orange 3. Chen Mo asked Wang Kai from the Market Research Department to first collect market demand and technological trends from competitors before making a decision.

The meeting ended and everyone dispersed.

Chen Mo left the conference room with light steps.

Gong Yun watched his figure disappear at the end of the corridor, lowered her head and smiled softly. Her fingertips unconsciously traced the words "Hong Kong Liansheng Group" on the notebook, a mysterious glint flashing in her eyes.

A HK$1500 million trust debt-to-equity swap resulted in a 33.6% stake in Hong Kong City Liansheng Group, with a market value of approximately HK$235.2 billion.

What would Mr. Chen's feelings be?

Haha! I'm actually kind of looking forward to it!

For Gong Yun, oranges are her home.

Chen Mo and Zhao Tiezhu are like two younger brothers in a family who need to be taken care of. One is a talented but occasionally vain tech geek, and the other is a seemingly dissolute but loyal and righteous street genius.

As for Xiaomi?

That's of course Gong Yun's favorite little darling at home!
(End of this chapter)