Chapter 686: 300 Million Users, 100 Million DAU, the Money-Making Edition! The Debut of Celestial Craft A100

October 18th, an ordinary Friday.

Sina Weibo submitted its application for a US IPO, with plans to raise 500 million US Dollars.

Wealth Treasure partnered with Yintai Department Store to promote its offline payment services.

Toutiao CEO Liang Bo posted an update on his Toutiao account: “A journey through every hardship, honoring two years of effort. Toutiao’s user base has exceeded 300 million, with over 100 million daily active users. To thank our loyal users, we will be launching Toutiao Express Edition on October 25th.”

Toutiao Express Edition was an app incubated internally to differentiate advertising, content, and audiences. It was a rewards-based version of the news app where users could “read news, earn coins, and redeem cash,” primarily targeting lower-tier markets.

Express Edition?

Faster?

Users were left confused. The information revealed by Liang Bo was extremely limited, and no one could figure out the real purpose behind launching Toutiao Express Edition.

What sense did it make to launch two versions of the same product in the same market?

Not only were users baffled, but even their competitors were completely bewildered.

However, the fact that Toutiao had accumulated 300 million registered users in just a year and a half—18 months—since its launch truly shocked the industry. It was the first time they had a clear understanding of the immense power of algorithmic recommendation engines.

Meanwhile.

Far away in Luzhou, at the International Conference Center, the massive conference hall was buzzing with excitement and packed with people.

Competitors, suppliers, experts and scholars from the chip industry, news media from home and abroad, and fans of the Orange Mobile Phone all gathered together, totaling over three thousand people.

With so many heavyweight guests in attendance, the reporters’ fingers never left their shutter buttons; they were busy taking photos and recording videos the entire time.

This was arguably the grandest product launch in all of Hua Country in 2013.

As the leader of domestic mobile phones, Orange Technology’s shipment volume ranked first domestically and third globally, leading fourth-place Huawei by a landslide.

With such prestige, this level of grandeur was only natural.

Sitting in the second row, Lei Yijun glanced at Huang Zhang not far away, then at Zhou Hongyi dressed all in red, and couldn’t help but feel a chill run down his spine.

Following the roaring success of the Redmi 1 and Xiaomi 3, Huang Zhang’s animosity towards Lei Yijun had reached its peak. He would often go to the Meizu forums to publicly flame Lei Yijun by name.

‘If I hadn’t taught Lei Yijun how to make phones, he wouldn’t know the first thing about them!’

It drove Lei Yijun to his wits’ end!

‘What did Xiaomi’s success have to do with Meizu?’

‘I use Orange Technology’s operating system and share the same supply chain and production lines as the Orange Mobile Phone.’

‘Me, copy you?’

‘How many units does Meizu even sell in a month? Why the hell would I need to copy you?’

But Lei Yijun wasn’t one to take the abuse without fighting back. He sued Meizu at lightning speed.

Huang Zhang had no choice but to delete the posts and apologize.

Going from friends to facing each other in court, it was an ugly situation for everyone.

Now, Huang Zhang couldn’t curse him online, so he could only do it in his head.

Ge Yue, the Apple Asia President, observed Chen Yansen while humoring the small talk from the Qualcomm representative.

At that moment, he was chatting and laughing animatedly with Meng Yuanzhi, Hu Ruihui, and Ren Zhongfei. His calm and composed demeanor gave no hint that he was just a twenty-one-year-old.

‘The North American Region’s media wasn’t exaggerating after all. The gap between him and Zuckerberg is huge, both in terms of business acumen and public relations,’ Ge Yue thought to herself.

At this thought, she couldn’t help but curse inwardly, ‘Damn it.’

Even if he had started learning how to navigate social situations and the ways of business from inside the womb, it made no sense for him to have achieved so much in his early twenties.

Ge Yue pondered for a long while, then smiled and shook her head. It seemed “genius” was the only explanation.

“President Chen, will Qingcheng be releasing a new model?” Ren Zhongfei didn’t speak, but Yu Chendong, who was beside him, asked.

“President Yu, are you hoping there will be, or hoping there won’t be?”

Chen Yansen raised an eyebrow and teased playfully.

‘He knew full well that behind his back, OPPO, Meizu, Lenovo, and Coolpad had cursed him as a ‘shit-stirrer.’ The 799-yuan Qingcheng D2 and the 599-yuan Qingcheng D2 SE had completely turned the 2013 smartphone industry upside down.’

To use Huang Zhang’s original words for cursing Lei Yijun: ‘A bastard who cheapens himself and the whole industry!’

Orange Technology, through its actions, had pushed smartphones into third- and fourth-tier cities and rural markets.

Leveraging more than 3,000 Yunsu Express Service Stations and over 4,000 Orange Mobile Phone micro direct-sales stores, Orange Technology had beaten low-cost phone brands like Ni Cai, Newman, and Blue Demon into submission.

These brands either switched to selling digital accessories or followed Orange Technology’s playbook, dabbling in even lower-priced feature phones or smartphones with ultimate value for money.

Since they couldn’t make big profits, they opted for small profits and quick returns!

If not for the fear that Chen Yansen would look down on them, manufacturers like Ni Cai, Newman, and Blue Demon actually wanted to follow the lead of Xiaomi, 360, and NetEase, joining Orange Technology’s hardware and software ecosystem and becoming its underlings.

After all, working with Chen Yansen, although the profit margins were lower, meant that production capacity, product performance, and sales channels were all guaranteed. All they had to do was handle sales and after-sales service.

Companies like 360 and NetEase even outsourced their after-sales services directly to Orange Technology.

At this launch event, the chairmen of both Blue Demon and Newman had come, hoping to use this opportunity to get on board Orange Technology’s big ship.

Hearing this, Yu Chendong gave a dry laugh and said, feigning nonchalance, “Of course I’m looking forward to a new product from the Qingcheng line.”

“Then I’ll have to ask President Yu to wait just a little longer.”

Chen Yansen raised his hand, glanced at the Patek Philippe on his wrist, and added with a smile, “Fifteen more minutes.”

Orange Technology’s product launch would begin at 9:00, and the host was, once again, Wang Teng.

Although the vast majority of Orange Mobile Phone users wanted to kick Wang Teng off the stage and replace him with Chen Yansen, President Chen had long lost interest in hosting launch events.

Wang Teng knew the product’s technical details and market positioning by heart. Coupled with his rich experience, he could control the pace of the event and handle professional questions with ease.

Besides, it wasn’t as if the netizens were serious.

Wang Teng had been hosting these launch events for over two years. In the eyes of hundreds of millions of Orange Technology fans, he was the most dutiful ‘son.’ How could they just replace him on a whim?

In fact, at this very moment, the Douyin livestream was flooded with bullet comments about Wang Teng.

“Don’t tell me Wang Teng is hosting again?”

“This guy could talk for three days and three nights about a single Orange B1 smart band. He’d want to explain everything from the planting and harvesting of the rubber to the manufacturing process, bit by bit.”

“Who did he learn this style from?”

“Sigh! As a ten-year veteran fan of Orange Technology, let me tell you the truth: Wang Teng learned it from Chen Yansen.”

“It’s a shame Chen Yansen only hosted Orange Technology’s very first product launch. Back then, they couldn’t even gather 100 fans in the conference hall. Nothing like now, with over 1,000 fans here in person!”

“It’s 8:55! Only 5 minutes left!”

“Someone go check Orange Mall and see if the link for the new product is up! Don’t just watch the livestream and forget the important business of snagging one of the first batch.”

Time ticked by, and soon it was 8:59.

Many office workers had placed their phones in front of their computers to watch the livestream.

Before, they wouldn’t have dared to be so extravagant, but after the popularization of the Star-Glory Card, netizens’ concept of mobile data had evolved from blurry pictures to high-definition images, and then to short and long videos.

For Star-Glory Card users, watching a livestream on mobile data didn’t incur extra costs, because the Douyin app itself was included in their free data plan.

Some office workers were hiding in the bathroom, slacking off and watching the livestream while taking a dump.

The development plan for the Celestial Craft A100 chip had been announced to the public six months ago.

And the teaser for this product launch had also stated that the Yaocheng X2 would be equipped with the nation’s first self-developed chip.

For the first time, a Hua Country smartphone had abandoned MediaTek, NVIDIA, Mountain Star, and Qualcomm in favor of a pure-blooded domestic chip.

This move not only focused the entire industry’s attention on the launch event but also made countless consumers clench their fists in anticipation.

If it really succeeded, it would mean that domestic smartphones had finally broken through in core technology and would no longer have to be at the mercy of foreign chip manufacturers.

Back-end data showed that the number of concurrent viewers in the livestream had surpassed ten million. The most frequently spammed words in the bullet comments were things like, “You have to make us proud,” “Waiting for a surprise,” and “We want self-developed, not self-deluded.”

On screen, a spotlight suddenly lit up.

Wang Teng smiled slightly and waved at the camera.

Compared to usual, Wang Teng seemed slightly nervous this time. He knew the marketing department had also opened a livestream on Mimo.

Although this launch event was held in Luzhou, it was aimed at a global audience.

To date, Orange Mobile Phone had amassed a large following in Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Zhou Shouzhi was currently in the North American Region, busy negotiating with carriers. If they made any progress, Orange Technology could sell its products in the Lighthouse Country and Maple Country through carrier channels as well as Walmart, Best Buy, and Amazon’s online and offline networks.

Wang Teng took a deep breath and walked steadily toward the stage. He was wearing a striking orange t-shirt with Orange Technology’s brand slogan printed on the chest—Let Technology Change Life.

He wore casual pants, sneakers, and an Orange B1 smart band on his wrist.

He looked clean and fresh, more like a fan attending the conference than the host.

“Hello, everyone! I’m Wang Teng from Orange Technology. First off, a huge thank you to the over 3,000 people in our audience today. It’s because of your support that Orange Technology continues to grow. Thank you!”

After his brief opening remarks, Wang Teng pressed the controller and switched the image on the giant LED screen behind him to a large CG render of the Celestial Craft A100 Chip.

“As you can all see, the first product of this conference isn’t a phone, a computer, a tablet, or a Smart Speaker. It’s today’s true star—the Celestial Craft A100 Chip.”

“From the processor to the graphics processor, to the digital signal processor and the baseband module—everything was completed by the more than 800 R&D engineers at Tiangong Technology, who worked for 365 days and nights and overcame countless difficulties to create this first, purely self-developed domestic SoC chip.”

Wang Teng said in a slow and steady voice.

He followed up by thanking Huawei, ZTE, and NVIDIA for their support with technology patents.

To be frank, the Celestial Craft A100 Chip did use some foreign patented technology, but Wang Teng’s words also made it clear that Orange Technology had obtained them through patent cross-licensing, which was both reasonable and compliant.

The representatives from Qualcomm and MediaTek exchanged a glance, their faces expressionless, making it impossible to guess their thoughts.

In their view, the Celestial Craft A100 was within their expectations. Ever since the Celestial Craft T100 was released, Chen Yansen’s ambition in the field of self-developed chips had been clear.

However, it seemed Orange Technology preferred a more diversified approach to its choice of processors.

As suppliers, no one knew better than them how many new products would be at this launch, and whether any of them would feature their own chips.

At the same time, the heads of potential competitors like Qualcomm, Apple, and ARM were also watching the livestream.

They wanted to know just how much of Hua Country’s first self-developed processor was smoke and mirrors.

“The processor module of the Celestial Craft A100 uses the Tianhe 64-bit heterogeneous multi-core architecture. The core configuration is four 2.7GHz Tianhe-100 super cores and four 1.8GHz Tianhe-100 performance cores.

“After rigorous performance testing, compared to the Snapdragon 800, single-thread performance is improved by 60%, branch predictor accuracy is 40% higher than the Cortex-A15, and power consumption is 25% to 30% lower.”

On the screen, Wang Teng spoke with confidence and eloquence.

After hearing this, Qualcomm CEO Paul narrowed his eyes, his brow deeply furrowed.