120: Fruit delivery person

November passed quickly. After returning to Shenzhen, Zheng Jiang and the other founders discussed for an afternoon before joining forces with the Shenzhen SASAC to accept Red Star's additional investment.

DJI's latest product, the Phantom Zenmuse Night, began to be listed on Red Star Mall. Of course, the after-sales service was currently independent; Red Star was only listing DJI drones and had not labeled them with the Red Star brand.

Offline stores continued to open throughout November, including three stores in the Beijing, counting the flagship store.

There was one flagship store and two regular stores in the Magic City.

In some provincial capitals, most were in the preparation phase and were expected to be operational by the first half of 2014.

Zhang Jianhui was in charge of these stores. Over the past year, she had been on business trips almost every day, flying all over the country. As preparations for these major cities were completed, her workload eased slightly.

This was mainly because the team she had built was now capable; team members could independently handle inspections and planning for specific regions.

The meeting with Fruit was scheduled for the end of November. After several rounds of internal discussions, Chen Chen decided to first see what terms Fruit could offer.

If Fruit was willing to pay upfront for the expansion of the Yangtze River New Energy factory, then accepting Fruit's orders would be acceptable.

"Mr. Chen, Mr. Cooker Neil from Fruit has arrived."

"Good. Have you notified CEO Lu? Tell him to wait a moment in the reception room; I'll be right there."

Chen Chen closed his laptop and stood up, speaking to Shen Rou.

"CEO Lu is already there."

After Shen Rou straightened Chen Chen's clothes, she accompanied him to the reception room.

"Mr. Cooker, what would you like to drink?" In the reception room, Lu Weiqi was already seated, hosting the Chief Operating Officer from Fruit's headquarters.

It was clear that the Fruit Company took this cooperation very seriously, sending someone directly from headquarters.

"Lu, I'd like a cup of tea. I've always been particularly fond of Chinese tea back in the USA."

Cooker Neil could only speak a word or two of Chinese, but Lu Weiqi's English was proficient. He didn't need a translator and spoke with him directly in English.

While Lu Weiqi was focused on brewing tea for Cooker Neil with the tea set, Chen Chen arrived at the reception room accompanied by Shen Rou.

"Mr. Cooker, sorry to keep you waiting."

As soon as he entered, Chen Chen extended his hand and walked toward Cooker Neil.

Seeing his boss arrive, Lu Weiqi quickly stood up and repeated in English to Cooker Neil, "Mr. Cooker Neil, this is the Chairman and decision-maker of our Red Star, Mr. Chen."

Cooker Neil straightened his suit slightly, then stood up, extended his hand, and said, "Chen, hello. I am Fruit's COO, Cooker."

"Please, have a seat," Chen Chen said with a smile as he shook hands with Cooker Neil.

"Mr. Chen, I wonder if your company's Yangtze River Battery can supply Fruit?"

As soon as they sat down, Cooker Neil got straight to the point.

"Mr. Cooker, our Yangtze River Battery's production capacity is insufficient. It's barely enough to supply our own Red Star needs; I'm afraid we don't have the capacity to supply Fruit."

"I'm very sorry."

Shen Rou translated Chen Chen's words for Cooker Neil, whose brow furrowed immediately upon hearing them.

"Mr. Chen, would your company be willing to sell the patents for the Yangtze River Battery, or perhaps license them to Fruit?"

"That way, we at Fruit could produce them ourselves without taking up your factory's capacity at all."

"Mr. Cooker, what do you think?"

Chen Chen was directly moved to laughter by the man's words.

Did Fruit send a fool, or do they take me for one?

Opening his mouth to ask for patents and licensing.

In his dreams.

"Mr. Cooker, could Fruit open up the iOS source code for Red Star to use?"

"No, no, no, Chen, that's impossible."

This foreigner... You open your mouth asking for patents, but when I ask for the iOS source code, you say 'no'. Are you out of your mind? He's not even as good as Mitchellson Abbot from last time; at least that guy was seriously negotiating battery procurement.

Instead of talking about this nonsense.

"Chen, if we were to purchase your yangtze river battery cells, what price could you offer?" Cooker Neil didn't notice that Chen Chen's tone had already turned sour and continued to ask.

"45 us dollars a piece, calculated based on the dimensions of the battery cells in your fruit 5."

The factory price of a battery cell was about 53 yuan. For the cell alone, not the completed battery assembly, and based on the 5500mAh battery used in the Kunpeng mobile phone, the factory price for one battery was a little over 60 yuan.

Asking Fruit for 45 us dollars was essentially an eightfold increase based on the exchange rate.

Was this price expensive?

It was indeed very expensive, but one asks for the sky and settles on the ground. If Fruit was willing to purchase at a price above 30 us dollars, Chen Chen wouldn't mind supplying them now.

"Oh my God!"

"Chen, this is too expensive!"

"Our purchase price for Sony's battery cells is less than 5 dollars. Your energy density has only increased by over 30%, yet you're asking for nine times the price. This is way too expensive!"

Cooker Neil kept shaking his head. When Mitchellson Abbot reported to headquarters, he said Red Star was only asking for 25 us dollars a piece, and now it had almost doubled again.

"There's an old Chinese saying: you get what you pay for. The reason you think it's expensive is that you haven't used it in a Apple phone yet. Why don't you take some samples back to test first?" Chen Chen said calmly.

"Of course, this price is calculated based on our factory's current costs. If Mr. Cooker thinks it's expensive, you can pay an advance for the goods. Once our factory expansion is complete, I expect this price will be even lower."

Setting such a high price while remaining so composed, as if he had Fruit right where he wanted them, Cooker Neil felt he definitely shouldn't underestimate this young man.

Chen Chen's calm and composed manner was such that he didn't even spare him a glance.

If it were any other supplier, they would be extremely cautious when meeting him, paying the utmost attention even to his facial expressions.

This Chen Chen, however, had a "take it or leave it" attitude, and Cooker Neil was at a loss.

Just as Mitchellson had said, Red Star's goal was to use Fruit's money to expand their factory. But it had always been Fruit purchasing products first and paying later; now it was reversed, requiring them to pay first.

As for Chen Chen, he was only pretending to be calm on the surface. Because the price was indeed too high, he was also afraid that Cooker Neil would stand up and leave upon hearing it.

But the cost would ultimately be passed to the consumer. With Cook's shrewdness, he might just buy a batch of yangtze river battery cells and immediately launch some fruit 5s Long Battery Life Version, selling it to consumers for another hundred or two hundred dollars more.

However, seeing that Cooker Neil was struggling but still wanted to continue talking, Chen Chen was no longer in a hurry. Selling battery cells to Fruit at a high price and then using Fruit's advance payment to expand the factory was like killing two birds with one stone.

It didn't matter if Fruit didn't agree; he would just invest his own money to expand. Red Star wouldn't lose anything.