Because of this, from the manufacturing to the launch of a mobile phone, supply chain management has become the most important position, and maintaining good relationships with suppliers is the most crucial task.
No one has core technology for assembled machines; the so-called "black technology" all comes from suppliers.
The machines produced are pretty much the same.
In the end, isn't it just a competition of whose accessories are better and whose software is more powerful?
De-risking the supply chain is particularly important.
Being able to get goods promptly, spend less money, and avoid being held hostage by suppliers requires a lot.
In addition, the cost of components and the order cycle are also very important.
Chen Pingjiang had just started making phones, and he hadn't established a reputation with those leading foreign suppliers; they wouldn't recognize his name.
Just the upfront deposit would drain a large amount of cash flow.
Wanting them to ship without paying?
That's a fucking dream.
And that's not all.
Some things can't be bought just because you have money.
Goods are snatched up by people waving checks; if you don't order several months in advance, there's simply no stock for you.
There are quite a few replaceable products in the mid-to-low end, but the high-end market has limited shares, and everyone is fighting for them.
But Orange Phone, as a new enterprise, is simply not enough to compete with established manufacturers.
Everyone used to criticize Xiaomi phones for using "hunger marketing," but that's not what it was about at all.
Lei Jun genuinely didn't have the components!
Otherwise, did you think he was stupid?
Having money but not making money, willingly waiting for the phone's popularity to decline?
Chen Pingjiang calculated the time; the iPhone 4 wouldn't be released until next summer, so it would be almost impossible to launch before it.
The smart factory is still under construction.
After it's built, there will be trial runs, and then full-scale production.
The first generation of Orange Phone should be launched a little later than the iPhone 4.
Given this, Chen Pingjiang wouldn't be so foolish as to go head-to-head.
It would be better to meticulously polish a good product.
However, Zhou Guangping smiled and said,
"If we want to avoid Apple, we'd have to wait until the first half of 2011 to launch our first-generation product, which is too long a time span. I suggest we can find Foxconn or Inventec to OEM the first generation. Once our own factory is built, it can be used to produce the second generation of Orange Phone. If we speed things up, we can seize the initiative in the first half of next year."
Chen Pingjiang turned to look at Lin Bin, asking for his opinion:
"Is half a year enough for R&D and mass production? Won't it be too rushed?"
Lin Bin said,
"It usually takes 6-8 months, but our user demand analysis is complete, which can cut down 1-2 months. If we speed things up later, we can indeed launch during the Chinese New Year."
Chen Pingjiang calculated and realized there was about half a year left.
"This means you all need to quickly design the product's appearance, user interface, and the Android-based UI."
In reality, the design phase also includes work such as circuit design, power supply design, and RF design.
Zhou Guangping volunteered,
"During this time, I can hurry to visit suppliers. We'll use Qualcomm's MSM8860 for the chip, and the baseband will also be Qualcomm's. For the remaining memory, cameras, and such, I'll go check with the Korean and Japanese suppliers to see who offers lower prices."
"Alright, then, Old Zhou, thank you for your hard work."
Chen Pingjiang nodded.
He actually wanted to go himself, but time wouldn't allow it.
Renren.com would soon be doing roadshows in the U.S., so he had no time to manage the supply chain.
The mobile phone supply chain is vast and complicated; he couldn't handle it all.
"Old Zhou, when you go to Qualcomm, take a detour to Texas. You know Texas Instruments, right? Try to poach some people from there. Also, consider people from Samsung, MediaTek, and TSMC."
Zhou Guangping gasped,
"Director Chen, are you really planning to get into chips?"
Chen Pingjiang grinned,
"I never joke."
The layout for the chip industry must be done early.
Domestic manufacturers can produce other components, but chips are lacking.
"If we're going to make chips, we must acquire an Arm license and perform secondary development based on Arm's public architecture."
Chen Pingjiang said,
"In short, you handle it. Funding is not an issue, don't save money for me; Orange Phone must be a huge success. Choose the best components based on cost-effectiveness, and bring back some talent from everywhere for me. Don't miss out on any patent licenses we can acquire. Please, Old Zhou."
Lin Bin and Zhou Guangping both looked at Chen Pingjiang with some surprise.
In their view, Chen Pingjiang's stance was nothing short of a huge gamble.
I'm crying my eyes out!
He could have made some assembled phones and relied on Renren.com's powerful marketing to effortlessly make money, but he insisted on taking an incredibly difficult path.
Chip design and manufacturing, that's the crown jewel of manufacturing.
Chen Pingjiang was already planning to go all in.
The 1 billion low-interest loan provided by the government was far from enough.
He had already planned to use all the profits from the catering business to fill the gap.
If that wasn't enough, he would mortgage the land for the factory to the bank and take out another loan.
According to Chen Pingjiang's conservative estimates, the cost of producing one million first-generation Orange Phones alone could be as high as 2 billion yuan, with an average cost of 2000 yuan per phone.
This includes all costs for OEM manufacturing, components, and so on.
Poaching talent and acquiring various patents would cost a minimum of 500 million.
Investing in factory construction and purchasing equipment would also cost several hundred million.
A rough calculation already comes to over 3 billion yuan.
If they later purchase lithography machines, it would be endless.
"Damn, no wonder they say physical businesses are hard to do. Aren't these money-guzzlers difficult to manage?"
Chen Pingjiang complained.
With over 3 billion yuan, if he invested it in the internet, he could create several listed companies.
...
Chen Pingjiang curiously examined the freshly released beta version of WeChat in front of him.
"It's basically the same as Mobile QQ, but the UI is a bit better than QQ. Unfortunately, it lacks outstanding features. Specifically, it doesn't reflect the functionality of a smartphone."
After playing with it for a while, Chen Pingjiang handed the phone back to Miao Bingwei.
Miao Bingwei was taken aback,
"Integrating with smartphones?"
"Exactly. Otherwise, what's the difference between it and QQ? Tencent only needs to develop a better Mobile QQ, and they can still defeat us, as they already have an existing social network, and users wouldn't need to migrate."
Chen Pingjiang paused and added,
"Our purpose in making WeChat is to allow users to communicate. It must be different from QQ. In the near future, many elderly people will use WeChat. Many of them might be illiterate or have presbyopia, so typing character by character would be too difficult for them."
Miao Bingwei thought about it and seemed to grasp the key point.
"If it supports voice calls, would that be enough?"
Chen Pingjiang nodded in appreciation,
"Excellent. In addition to voice calls, we can also build a community within WeChat, similar to QQ Zone or our Weibo. I call it 'Moments,' where everyone can share food, moods, and updates."
"Besides that, anonymous social networking should also be used, right? We need to allow strangers to spark different connections through WeChat. Let's add a 'Drift Bottle' to the features, and 'People Nearby' and 'Shake' can also be utilized."
Chen Pingjiang's ideas came one after another; Miao Bingwei had long been used to it, as it wasn't the first day he knew him.
When he heard about the so-called anonymous social networking and "People Nearby," Miao Bingwei smiled ambiguously.
Everyone was well aware of where these features might be used.
The original WeChat 1.0 version was actually not much different from the earlier Fetion.
It was the voice walkie-talkie feature updated in version 2.0 that allowed WeChat to finally break through and get the first ticket to the mobile internet.
Multi-person walkie-talkie laid the foundation for later group chats, while one-on-one voice messaging became WeChat's most important feature, pioneering a new way of social interaction.
Voice walkie-talkie allowed parents who couldn't type to also participate in pleasant chats, which other software couldn't provide.
Even the family's dowager empress used WeChat, so naturally, the younger generation below would have to use it too.
In the era without dating apps like Momo or Tantan, the destructive power of "Shake" and "People Nearby" was imaginable; they were practically tailor-made for young people and would quickly become prime spots for hookups.
When Moments first came out, everyone said there was already QQ Zone and Renren.com, so who would use Moments?
The result proved: it was truly great.
The emergence of Moments began to differentiate WeChat from other software.
Users could keep track of their friends' updates through Moments, so why bother logging into SNS social networking sites?
It's feared that once WeChat is released, Li Xi will be complaining endlessly again.
To be honest, most of Renren.com's current user base consists of white-collar workers, and the content quality is quite good, but the tide of history is irresistible and does not shift with individual will.
The emergence of Weibo hit Renren.com, and the emergence of WeChat would then hit Weibo, and hit Renren.com once more.
Users will continuously migrate between different software.
For IM, there's WeChat; for self-media, there's their own Weibo; even for future hookups, WeChat and Momo will be in the way; for niche fields, there's their own Zhihu.
Even when transitioning to lifestyle and travel products, Xiaohongshu will be ahead.
Renren.com couldn't compete with rivals in these categories, and Chen Pingjiang wouldn't allow internal friction.
Chen Pingjiang decided that Renren.com's future positioning would be a niche website, acting as a "troublemaker" in the internet industry.
"Work quickly to get these features out by the end of the year. After internal testing, they can be launched to the market after the new year."
WeChat would be the second to last piece of Chen Pingjiang's social empire puzzle; the final piece would be Douyin.
However, Douyin wouldn't be viable for a while.
Technology was secondary; the most crucial factor was that the soil for short videos would only exist after internet data fees for users decreased.
This is actually similar to live streaming.
After thinking for a moment, Chen Pingjiang called Li Xi over again.
"Stop looking so glum. I called you here this time because I have a great project for you. After it's developed, it won't be long before it becomes another hit product."
Hearing about such a good opportunity, Li Xi, who had recently been worrying so much that he started losing hair at a young age, asked,
"Director Chen, what kind of product is it?"
"Develop a smartphone app that recommends information to users, connecting people with information services."
Li Xi curiously asked,
"Won't that overlap functionally with Weibo?"
Chen Pingjiang shook his head,
"It's different. Toutiao focuses on information services, while Weibo focuses on social networking. Their timeliness also differs. Toutiao emphasizes its information database, while Weibo only captures current hot topics.
Weibo excels with celebrities and influencers, while Toutiao highlights grassroots content. In other words, we need to more purely place new media and self-media on Toutiao, as a channel for sharing news, features, current events, and opinions."
Li Xi's eyes lit up.
He seemed to grasp Chen Pingjiang's idea and broadly formed a plan in his mind.
"I understand what you mean, Boss. Toutiao is actually an information distribution platform?"
"Yes!"
Chen Pingjiang nodded.
The Toutiao project would still be placed under Renren.com's main entity to stabilize its stock price.
For future live streaming and Douyin, Chen Pingjiang planned to do them together, establishing separate entities, and even combining them with e-commerce.
Chen Pingjiang clearly understood that once it reached that point, his business empire would no longer need to expand.
Instead, it would shift towards high-tech fields like AI and cloud computing.
Even if he wanted to expand, he would face the iron fist of anti-monopoly laws.
Chen Pingjiang had little interest in ride-hailing, shared bicycles, or shared power banks, and didn't have enough energy for them.
After discussing work, the two chatted about everyday life.
"I heard Old Miao say you've been doing well recently, got a girlfriend?"
Chen Pingjiang smiled as he looked at Li Xi.
Li Xi chuckled,
"She's from our finance university. I liked her as soon as I started college, but I never dared to confess until recently when we finally got together."
He only dared to have a crush before because Li Xi lacked confidence.
Now, Li Xi was considered a highly eligible bachelor.
Once Renren.com successfully went public, his funds breaking 100 million would be like child's play, not to mention his annual eight-figure various salary incomes.
Before, many eligible single girls in the company had intentionally or unintentionally shown favor to Li Xi.
Chen Pingjiang was the man they couldn't get, but if they could get Li Xi, that wouldn't be bad either.
But Li Xi disdained these flirtatious women, single-mindedly pursued his "white moonlight," and eventually his dream came true.
He had now bought a 300-square-meter large flat in Dongjiang, and his parents, younger brother, and younger sister had all moved in.
In his early twenties, he was already a winner in life.
If not for being overshadowed by Chen Pingjiang's dazzling brilliance in the company, he would also be a hot commodity if he were to go out on his own.
"When are you planning to get married?"
"She just got accepted as a graduate student at our university. Both families mean for them to get married after she graduates."
Chen Pingjiang nodded,
"Remember to invite me to your wedding banquet."
"Of course! Everyone else can be uninvited, but you certainly can't be."
Li Xi did not lose sight of himself just because he was rich and highly placed; his arduous living environment since childhood had also cultivated his simple and honest character.
He was clear-headed.
Chen Pingjiang was his only benefactor.
Without Chen Pingjiang's trust and promotion, he might even have trouble renting a place now, let alone buying a house or having a relationship.
If possible, Li Xi would be very willing to stay at Renren.com until retirement, growing with Renren.com.
Watching Li Xi's departing back, Chen Pingjiang had a smile on his face.
For him at this stage, money was more like a numbers game; as long as he didn't squander it, he would never run out.
The increase in account numbers no longer caused significant fluctuations in his heart as it once did.
And changing the destinies of those around him happened to make up for this.
(End of Chapter)