Chapter 603 - 431: 1.468 Million Units in 2 Days! The Orange B1 Band, a Huge Hit Overseas

Someone was fixing his hair, while someone else touched up his makeup.

Wang Teng clutched a script, glancing down from time to time to memorize its contents.

Chen Yansen raised his wrist to check his watch. 8:55. ’Old Wang is really giving it his all.’

He didn’t go over to disturb him, instead walking toward the elevators and pressing the button for the top floor.

DING—!

The elevator doors slowly slid open.

"Good morning, Boss!" Meng Yun greeted him softly with a smile.

Her desk was right outside Chen Yansen’s office, which made daily communication very convenient.

Chen Yansen gave a slight nod and stepped into his office.

The money tree on his desk was a vibrant, glistening green, and it was growing exceptionally well.

He took a bottle of cold brew tea from the fridge, twisted off the cap, and took a long drink before sitting down at his desk.

He turned on his computer, and a news notification popped up in the bottom-right corner of his screen: "Qingcheng D2 SE Reaches 673,000 Pre-orders on First Day."

Chen Yansen dragged the mouse over, clicked the image, and was immediately taken to the Toutiao homepage.

"Gotta be honest, Orange Technology is being a bit shameless. They already have the 799-yuan Qingcheng D2, so why bother making a 599-yuan D2 SE version?"

"You idiot! Let me tell you why: there’s huge demand in small towns and rural areas! Six to seven hundred thousand sales in a day proves President Chen made the right call."

"512MB of RAM is way too little!"

"You think the specs are too low, but the phone isn’t complaining that you’re too poor, is it? You should know, a phone with these specs would have cost at least 1,000 yuan last year."

"Hey guys, Meitu XiuXiu released a new phone too. What does everyone think?"

Chen Yansen let out a small smile as he read this.

The MeituKiss, launched by Meitu XiuXiu, was the second phone in China to feature an 8-megapixel front camera. The first was the Yaocheng X1.

It ran on the Aurora Future 1.0 system and featured a 4.5-inch IPS touchscreen with a 1280×720 resolution. Both the front and rear cameras were 8 megapixels, using a second-generation back-illuminated CMOS sensor with a large f/2.2 aperture, and it was designed with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of ROM.

From its system and camera algorithms to its supply chain and manufacturing, the MeituKiss phone was no different from those made by 360 or Xiaomi.

But its pricing was a world apart!

The first limited batch of 18,888 units was priced at 2,199 yuan.

It came in three colors—Shell White, Sakura Pink, and Rose Red. From its appearance, it was clear that the phone’s core demographic was women.

If Orange Technology were to release a phone with similar specs, it would sell for 999 or 1,299 yuan at most. 360 and Xiaomi might price theirs at 1,399 or 1,499 yuan.

Even though Meitu XiuXiu was just a photo-editing software company, they had the guts to demand the "sky-high price" of 2,199 yuan.

Furthermore, to ensure brand hype and sales volume, Wu Hongxin had spent a fortune to hire Yang Tianbao as a brand ambassador.

The launch was scheduled for the same time as Wang Teng’s livestream.

Chen Yansen knew perfectly well that those 18,888 units would sell out in under half an hour.

For women who loved taking selfies, an 8-megapixel front camera was a god-tier weapon. Paired with AI beautification features, it was practically a nuclear option.

’Wu Hongxin is too naive!’

Forget 18,888 units; they could have sold 88,888 units without a problem.

Chen Yansen quickly skimmed the trending news, then switched windows to focus on advancing the Celestial Craft A100 project. He would occasionally visit the R&D lab to discuss GPU design plans with Yu Xianyang and the others.

The time soon reached ten o’clock. In just twenty minutes, the MeituKiss product page was updated with a "Sold Out" status.

Gone?

Who was buying all of them?!

Meitu XiuXiu’s users were completely bewildered.

Users who missed out were distraught, some even rushing to Meitu’s official social media comments to demand more inventory.

This turn of events left their competitors dumbfounded.

’You can sell phones like this?’

In their eyes, aside from a slightly superior camera, the MeituKiss’s specs and performance were comparable to the Qingcheng D2. It would have been a tough sell even at 999 yuan.

Yet, they had priced it at 2,199 yuan, and the initial stock had sold out completely.

Some believed the success of the MeituKiss was all thanks to Yang Tianbao.

Others thought the MeituKiss’s success came from its niche positioning, focusing on its beautifying camera functions to attract female users.

As a result, many companies began to get ideas, hoping to use the "celebrity effect" to justify a higher price for their own products.

Suddenly, celebrities like Jay Chou, Lin Junjie, Wang Li Hong, and Wang Fei were all receiving collaboration offers from mobile phone brands. Even Zhao Benshan, Yang Mi, and Wang Feng weren’t spared.

Orange Technology’s newly appointed Brand Director, Wang Shixiang, urgently submitted a list of candidates to Chen Yansen, proposing they create a co-branded phone between Orange Mobile Phone and a celebrity.

Chen Yansen gave the list a cursory glance before rejecting the proposal outright.

It wasn’t that he was against making some easy money, but Wang Shixiang had a truly unique eye for talent. Of the seven candidates he proposed, three were drug addicts, two were caught up in sex scandals, one was an adulterer, and one was a tax evader.

’This guy should have been a criminal investigator!’

「Meanwhile.」

In the livestream, Wang Teng had just finished introducing the Qingcheng D2 SE when he pulled out a smart wristband with a pure white strap.

"This is the Orange B1 smart wristband. It has a 1.84-inch AMOLED display on the front with a 76% screen-to-body ratio. It comes with a built-in alarm clock, timer, stopwatch, and flashlight. It can also monitor your sleep quality, heart rate, and blood oxygen levels. A one-hour charge gives you up to a week of battery life, and it can last for two weeks in power-saving mode."

Wang Teng rattled off the features to the camera.

In reality, Orange Technology hadn’t invested much energy into smart wearables.

It was only after the domestic and international supply chains had matured that Chen Yansen had Lin Qingbai develop a more advanced version.

Furthermore, the B1 smart wristband could also connect to Bluetooth headsets and the Moss (Alexa) Smart Speaker, allowing for simple control operations.

"The price is 499 yuan! The overseas version is priced at 89 US Dollars!"

Wang Teng talked about everything from its water resistance and sensors to the watch face designs, speaking for over an hour before he finally stopped and announced the price.

The price might not seem low, but in 2013, a 499-yuan price tag was enough to completely shake up the global smart wearable market.

After all, even the Gudong wristband—a collaboration with Qian Du—dared to sell for 399 yuan, and it had fewer features than the Orange B1. It didn’t even have a screen, just three LED lights to indicate its status.

Overseas, the Jawbone UP, released two years ago, was priced at 129 US Dollars. The Nike FuelBand from last year sold for 149 US Dollars, and the Fitbit Flex, released just last month, sold for 99 US Dollars.

Like the Gudong band, these three products had no real screen, only a dot matrix of LED lights.

Compared to the Orange B1, both domestic and international competitors seemed to be living in the Stone Age, while Orange Technology had brought smart wearables into the Industrial Age.

Was a 499-yuan price tag expensive?

By the time Wang Teng’s livestream ended, 26,000 units of the Orange B1 had already been sold.

This kind of gadget was still a novelty in 2013, and its adoption among young people was extremely high. It sold far better than the Moss Smart Speaker.

「At the same time.」

The Orange B1 was launched simultaneously in Europe and America. Online sales were handled by Amazon and Walmart, while offline sales went through Best Buy, Aldi, Costco, and carrier channels.

The popularity of the Orange B1 far exceeded Chen Yansen’s expectations.

On its launch day, cumulative global sales reached 374,000 units: 139,000 in China and 235,000 in overseas markets.

The moment the Orange B1 launched, it poached half the user base of the FuelBand, Fitbit Flex, and Misfit Shine.

One had a high-definition AMOLED display, while the others just had an LED dot matrix. There was simply no comparison.

"The Orange B1 is so refined. It doesn’t feel like a product from 2013 at all."

"Chen Yansen just posted an update on Mimo! He’s going to randomly select 10,000 lucky users from the comments, and each person will get a free Orange B1 smart wristband."

"I absolutely love this Eastern tech company!"

Potential customers in North America were discussing it heatedly on Facebook.

In truth, neither the Alexa Smart Speaker nor the Orange B1 was priced low, but their performance was so strong that they were highly sought after by local users.

Mao Chaorong made a point of increasing the frequency of Orange B1 review videos pushed to users on the Mimo platform, further boosting the product’s hype in the North American region.

Of course, the product that domestic users cared about most was still the Qingcheng D2 SE.

Its ultra-low price of 599 yuan tempted most users to place an order.

The 799-yuan Qingcheng D2 was too expensive, but the 599-yuan Qingcheng D2 SE was just right.

In just two days, a total of 1.468 million units were sold!

As a result, Cloud Speed couriers and Kuai Pao deliverymen all over the country became even busier.