Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

The Moss Smart Speaker sold for 799 Hua Yuan in the domestic market, while the Alexa Smart Speaker sold for 199 US Dollars in the European and American markets. No one noticed at first, but a week ago, a YouTuber posted a video furiously accusing Orange Technology of price discrimination.

The Moss and Alexa Smart Speakers were essentially the same product.

To address this, Chen Yansen had Wang Teng register official YouTube and Facebook accounts and post an explanation for the price difference.

First, there were tariffs, value-added taxes, and other fees.

Second, the voice interaction systems in the Moss and Alexa Smart Speakers had different training costs for their respective algorithm models.

Third, the two products had different software ecosystems, leading to different licensing fees for music, search, map, and Q&A apps.

”It’s just a few minor influencers making a fuss. It hasn’t affected the Alexa Smart Speaker’s sales at all. Daily sales over the past week have been between 35,000 and 40,000 units.”

Wang Teng shrugged, unconcerned.

To put it bluntly, if overseas customers thought the Alexa Smart Speaker was too expensive, no one was forcing them to buy it.

”It’s better to be safe than sorry. We need to keep an eye on public opinion. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are all looking to enter the smart speaker market. You never know when one of them might stab us in the back.”

Chen Yansen nodded slightly and cautioned him.

”Understood, Boss,” Wang Teng replied with a nod.

With that, the two of them walked toward the elevators.

As they walked, Wang Teng mentioned that the engineering prototypes for the Orange C3 and Orange D1S had completed hardware, system, and scenario simulation testing. He then asked for Chen Yansen’s opinion on when to hold the product launch event.

More than six months had passed since the launch of the Orange C2 and Orange D1. Considering a phone’s typical sales life cycle of eight to twelve months, it was about time for a new product release.

”Let’s do August 18th,” Chen Yansen said casually.

Similar to the spring launch event, they were again going with a combined high-end and low-end strategy, leaving the mid-range market to the now-discounted Orange C1.

After just one year on the market, the price for a smartphone with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage had been driven down to 1,299 Hua Yuan by competitors like Xiaomi, 360, NetEase, Shanda, and Ah Li.

The price of the Orange C1 had also dropped from 1,999 to 1,399 Hua Yuan. As the ”phone king” of 2011, it could still hold its own in 2012. Total shipments for the first half of the year were 4.1 million units. Including July’s sales, the cumulative total reached an impressive 4.9 million units.

”I’ll book the venue first, then send out invitations to suppliers, competitors, the news media, and fans,” Wang Teng replied.

Chen Yansen acknowledged him with a simple sound. ”You can handle it,” he said directly.

Wang Teng had experience hosting a launch event before. Besides, Ye Qiuping’s brand department would be assisting the marketing department.

Back in his office, Chen Yansen turned on his computer, opened his email, and started working. He soon found the sales summary report from Wang Teng.

The Alexa Smart Speaker sold 294,000 units in June and 1,273,000 in July, for a total of 1,567,000 units. The sales revenue amounted to 312 million US Dollars.

However, the sales growth trend suggested a limited market capacity. Daily sales had now dropped to just over 30,000 units. He estimated the market could absorb about 6 million units for the entire year, with a projected annual revenue of 1.2 billion US Dollars.

For a smart speaker, this sales performance already met Chen Yansen’s expectations.

Although the Moss Smart Speaker had launched a week earlier, its total sales for June and July were only 529,000 units—not even a fraction of the overseas sales.

’Looks like the domestic market isn’t mature enough yet.’

Chen Yansen leaned back in his chair, pondering.

The second email was from Xiao Jun. It reported that the latest version of Gaode Map had been released on July 31. Besides a new UI, it now included integrations for the Fast Taxi and Kuai Pao services.

On the first day alone, it generated 83,000 orders for Fast Taxi and 19,000 for Kuai Pao, demonstrating an astonishing ability to monetize traffic.

The results showed that the Fast Taxi service was a more natural fit for Gaode Map.