Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

”President Chen, this is Zhou Hongyi. Regarding the collaboration we discussed last time, 360 is ready.”

This time, Zhou Hongyi introduced himself right away, sparing Chen Yansen from another awkward, ”Hello, who is this?”

”President Zhou, I know. I saved your number this time,” Chen Yansen replied with a chuckle.

Zhou Hongyi was certainly impatient. It had only been a little over two months, and he had already finished all the preparations.

It didn’t take a genius to know Lao Zhou must have taken shortcuts again.

Sure enough, after a few inquiries, Chen Yansen figured out Zhou Hongyi’s strategy. He had applied for the 360 Mobile Phone trademark and sales license, contacted Yu Chendong, and then used Huawei’s design team and supply chain to complete the new product’s industrial and hardware design.

”President Zhou, in that case, why not just have Huawei manufacture them for you?” Chen Yansen asked, puzzled.

It seemed Zhou Hongyi was determined to ride Orange Technology’s coattails this time.

”President Chen, it’s because the Aurora OS 1.3 is a much better operating system. The native Android 4.0 is terrible. Besides, I also need to license the patents for Orange Technology’s battery management and fast-charging technologies.”

Zhou Hongyi got straight to the point, stating frankly that he had already cleared it with Yu Chendong to give the manufacturing contract for this batch of phones to Orange Technology.

Chen Yansen rolled his eyes. He couldn’t care less about an order that small.

Huawei had manufacturing orders for 10 million units a year, and Xiaomi had a volume of 4 to 5 million. And 360?

Their first batch, the Haier W910, was only 10,000 units. The workers and production line had barely gotten into the swing of things before the order was finished.

”What’s the size of the first order?” Chen Yansen couldn’t help but ask.

”Fifty thousand units,” Zhou Hongyi said, full of confidence.

’Then aren’t you going to lose another 40 to 50 million?’

Chen Yansen scoffed internally but was too polite to say it out loud, not wanting to wound Zhou Hongyi’s pride.

”Alright, President Zhou. First, send me the detailed specs for the phone. I’ll have the legal department at Orange Technology draft the patent licensing agreement. And let me be the first to wish the 360 Mobile Phone great success.”

Not wanting to waste any more time on such a trivial matter, Chen Yansen said his piece and hung up.

A minute later, the files from Zhou Hongyi landed in his inbox. Clearly, he’d had them ready to go.

He downloaded the attachment and unzipped the file. Inside were schematic diagrams and the PCB design, a Bill of Materials (detailing the specifications, models, and quantities of every hardware component, including chips, resistors, capacitors, the display, camera, battery, and so on), the hardware interface definition document, antenna design materials, assembly diagrams, and exploded-view drawings.

’How big of a cut did Zhou Hongyi give Huawei for them to put in this much effort?’

Chen Yansen wondered as he clicked open the exterior design files.

The 360 G800 Pro Shine: an ultra-thin bezel design, a 4.3-inch high-resolution touchscreen, GPS, WIFI, and Bluetooth support, a 1GHz dual-core A9 architecture CPU, 1GB of RAM and 4GB of storage, and an 8-megapixel rear camera. It had also done away with Android’s three main navigation buttons, paying full homage to the Orange Mobile Phone.

He glanced over the bill of materials. The components were indeed much higher quality than those in the Haier W910. It seemed Lao Zhou had learned his lesson after getting ripped off the first time.

At a price of only 1299 yuan, and with the Aurora OS 1.3, there was a real chance it could sell a few million units.

Zhou Hongyi undoubtedly had a knack for the phone business. His mindset was clear: ’We’re all just assembly plants, so don’t anyone put on airs in front of me.’

Xiaomi claimed to only make a 5% profit on hardware; Zhou Hongyi simply announced that 360 Mobile Phone wouldn’t make a single dime on its hardware.

Four years later, the 360 N4 phone would sell two million units in three months. It would sell out on Jingdong at one point, and even show up on third-party platforms at a markup.

This proved that 360 Mobile Phone truly had very little hardware profit margin.

Accountant Jia, who later fled to the Lighthouse Country, had a marketing philosophy cut from the same cloth as Lao Zhou’s.