Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

The remaining 8,000 units were piled up in a warehouse. He couldn’t sell them, and he couldn’t even give them away. Zhou Hongyi had no idea what to do.

360’s first special edition phone ended up with a loss of 10 million yuan.

But Zhou Hongyi hadn’t given up. After finalizing a partnership with Huawei, he set his sights on Orange Technology.

”Hello, President Chen? It’s me! It’s Zhou Hongyi! You didn’t save my number?!”

But when Zhou Hongyi got through to Chen Yansen, he was first stunned, then so angry he stomped his foot.

’That punk Chen Yansen is too damn arrogant!’

”My apologies, President Zhou. I got a new phone last time and lost all my contacts.”

The corner of Chen Yansen’s mouth tilted up as he spoke with a mischievous smile.

Zhou Hongyi knew the kid was talking nonsense, and Chen Yansen knew that Zhou Hongyi could tell. But he just wanted to needle him a little. Who told that bastard to put on such a condescending, sneering face the first time they met?

”President Chen, I’d like to discuss a collaboration with Orange Technology on a special edition phone,” Zhou Hongyi said, getting straight to the point, too lazy to beat around the bush.

A special edition phone?

Chen Yansen sneered and refused decisively, ”President Zhou, the Orange Phone Factory only accepts manufacturing orders.”

If it were anyone else, he might have agreed, but not 360.

He had studied the Haier W910. Zhou Hongyi had pre-installed a whole suite of 360 software on the phone, like 360 Mobile Security, 360 Browser, 360 File Manager, and so on.

Every day when users woke up, they were greeted by 360’s system pop-ups, weather widgets, and wallpaper ads. It wasn’t a phone; it was clearly an ad player.

”What if we use the 360 brand name?” Zhou Hongyi gave a dry laugh. He was a smart man; how could he not know what Chen Yansen was worried about?

”That could be considered, but 360 would still have to handle the phone’s industrial and hardware design itself.”

Chen Yansen replied cautiously.

In short, he was willing to cooperate and earn the money, but Zhou Hongyi could forget about using Orange Technology as a shield.

”Alright, President Chen. I’ll contact you again later.”

Zhou Hongyi wasn’t exactly satisfied with this result, but he wasn’t disappointed either. Chen Yansen’s rejection had actually sparked the idea of making his own phone.

The 3C certification, the radio transmission equipment model approval, and the mobile phone production license—things that were a hassle for others—were a piece of cake for him.

He hadn’t been wasting his years in Yanjing. He had connections with the big shots at the Information Industry Association. Getting the paperwork done was just a matter of a few business dinners at most.

The design was even simpler!

’Where couldn’t I poach people from? Xiaomi, Meizu, OPPO, ZTE, and Huawei are all fair game.’

’Didn’t Orange Technology’s R&D department poach all its people from competitors?’

After hanging up, Chen Yansen smiled faintly.

’Looks like Lei Yijun has pushed Zhou Hongyi to the brink. He’s determined to go head-to-head with Xiaomi.’

Ten minutes later, Yu Chendong from Huawei called. He asked bluntly, ”President Chen, I’ll give the Orange Phone Factory a manufacturing order for 10 million units, but Orange Technology has to license its latest version of the memory cleanup algorithm patent to Huawei.”

Compared to Zhou Hongyi, Yu Chendong’s negotiation style was much more direct and clear.

He laid out the terms of cooperation plainly!

”I only want manufacturing orders for smartphones.”

Chen Yansen replied with a smile.

”No problem,” Yu Chendong immediately agreed.

Huawei’s total global smartphone shipments were over 50 million units a year. 10 million units was less than 20% of that.

Besides, phone manufacturing wasn’t exactly a high-end business. It was fine to hand over some of their low-to-mid-range models to the Orange Phone Factory.

And for Chen Yansen, the memory cleanup algorithm patent wasn’t a core technology patent either. If he could give it to Xiaomi, he could give it to Huawei.