122: Red Star anti-tank drone [Hydrology]

In Cooker's view, although Red Star's asking price was a bit high, the price of 19 us dollar was acceptable. Fruit's new device, the iPhone 6, was already under design. The designers were tasked with launching a large-screen version, the fruit 6 plus, which, combined with the addition of the Yangtze River Battery...

It could practically take off right then and there!

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The millions of battery cells in the supplemental agreement with Red Star were planned for a long-battery-life version of the 5s to see how the market would react.

With the tasks assigned by Cook perfectly completed, Nokia fallen, and Samsung being the perpetual runner-up, Fruit would become the smartphone overlord of the planet. How could Cooker not be beaming with joy?

However, this scene was still captured by someone with intentions.

Before long, rumors that Fruit was going to acquire Red Star began to circulate online, and the reports were surprisingly detailed.

[Fruit COO Cooker Has Reached an Acquisition Agreement with Red Star]

[Domestic Brand to Be Acquired: What Exactly Did Fruit See in Red Star? Click for Full Details]

[Shocking! What Was the Real Purpose of Cooker's Visit to Red Star?!]

[The Whole Internet Is Boiling! Red Star Is Going to Acquire Fruit!]

"Holy crap! Is this for real? Didn't Red Star just release a new phone? How could they be acquired by Fruit? Besides, why would Fruit want to acquire Red Star anyway?"

"Why? Haven't you seen how popular the kunpeng phone 2 is right now? Fruit is feeling the pressure, so they're just going to uproot the competition by buying Red Star."

"I think Fruit is more likely interested in Red Star's battery and fast-charging technology. They probably went there to discuss a partnership."

"@Old Zhang Talks Tech, didn't you say Fruit's labs had hundreds of watts of fast charging? Why is it still 5V1A after two years!"

"Stop beating a dead horse, the person above. Old Zhang hasn't used this account for a long time. I also think it's unrealistic for Red Star to be acquired. How could a company with tens of billions in annual revenue be acquired so easily? It's probably like the person above said—Fruit came to Red Star to talk about some kind of cooperation."

"Heaven forbid! Fruit is actually looking for Red Star to talk about cooperation? Do you guys guess it's batteries or charging?"

"My guess is charging. Nowadays, our domestic phones, even the hundred-yuan ones, have at least 10 watts of charging power, while Fruit's is still 5 watts. Fruit is probably going to Red Star to license charging technology."

"@Red Star Mobile Phone @Chen Chen, what business is Fruit actually discussing with you?"

"@Chen Chen, is Red Star really being acquired by Fruit?"

Seeing the online news getting more and more ridiculous, Red Star had no choice but to issue an announcement to explain the situation.

[Recently, Fruit COO Cooker and Red Star Chairman Mr. Chen Chen reached a preliminary cooperation agreement between Red Star Group's Yangtze River New Energy Company and Fruit after friendly negotiations.]

"Fruit and Yangtze River New Energy?"

"Could it be that Red Star is supplying yangtze river battery cell to Fruit?"

Yu Chengbei looked at Red Star's announcement and fell into deep thought. He had approached Chen Chen before to purchase Yangtze River Battery, but Chen Chen had refused, citing insufficient production capacity.

Now they're turning around and supplying Fruit—where did he get all that capacity?

One must know that supplying Fruit isn't about hundreds of thousands or millions; it's a supply volume of at least tens of millions. With the current factory of Yangtze River New Energy, it's a struggle even to supply Red Star's own phones, let alone Fruit.

"President Yu, there's news."

The marketing department manager rushed into Yu Chengbei's office and said,

"The Yangtze River New Energy Company factory is going to be expanded, and supposedly Fruit is paying for it."

"Fruit is paying for it? Would they be so kind?"

"President Yu, that's right, Fruit is paying. We don't know the specifics, but the general idea is that if Fruit wants to purchase Yangtze River Battery, they must first pay a deposit for Red Star to expand production; otherwise, they won't be included in Fruit's supplier list."

"Haha, I didn't expect Fruit to suffer a setback in China one day," Yu Chengbei laughed.

"However, if Yangtze River New Energy joins Fruit's supplier system, their development will definitely be even more rapid. Do we have any leads on our new battery?" Yu Chengbei turned and asked a person in charge of a Huawei laboratory standing nearby.

Lu Xiu felt bitter. Was a new battery really that easy to develop?

They had to work on fast charging, high-density batteries, and screens.

Even if Huawei's labs were bigger and the Engineers more capable, these things couldn't just be whipped up overnight.

"President Yu, we... still have no leads."

Seeing that Lu Xiu's expression was a bit unnatural, Yu Chengbei didn't ask further; he was also anxious himself.

Needless to say, in terms of charging and batteries, Huawei couldn't catch up to Red Star. He had originally thought they could win back some ground with a new processor and 4G baseband, but unexpectedly, Red Star also had a 4G baseband, and their processor performance was roughly the same as Huawei's.

Now that the red star 3 has increased its price to the 2,000 to 3,000 yuan range, it's completely rubbing Huawei's p series into the ground.

Yu Chengbei basically had no hope for the domestic market. Now, Huawei's path to the high-end could only depend on the international market. Fortunately, Red Star hasn't gone global yet.

If Red Star also went global, wouldn't that mean they couldn't compete with Red Star domestically or internationally?

As the saying goes, whatever you fear will come true. Just as Yu Chengbei was thinking that Red Star hadn't gone global yet, the marketing manager's words poured cold water on him.

"President Yu, Red Star will hold a global launch event in Munich at the end of December, hosted by Lu Weiqi. Red Star just released the news."

Yu Chengbei's face instantly changed, while the marketing manager, not noticing Yu Chengbei's expression, continued talking to himself, "It's expected that they will launch the red star 3 international version and the kunpeng 2nd generation international version, with the first batch going on sale in the European market."

"Not only that, Red Star has also opened a dedicated window on Flipkart, India's largest e-commerce website, and registration is now open."

"There's no news about the American market yet."

"Oh, by the way, employees at the Nigeria branch said that a group of Chinese people registered a company called Transmission Star locally. Our employees learned from talking to them that they are all from a company in the Imperial Capital."

"Combined with the company name Transmission Star, I suspect Red Star will also start business in the African market."

Yu Chengbei didn't care much about Africa, and he didn't care particularly about the India market either; these regions weren't the primary sales areas for Huawei mobile phones. Only the European and American markets could support the price and profit margins of Huawei mobile phones. Now, Red Star's first step in going global was the European market.

This made Yu Chengbei feel even more urgent.

Europe and America were Huawei's stronghold and absolutely could not be lost.

"You go out first, I need to talk to Lu Xiu."

"Alright, President Yu."

After the marketing manager left, Yu Chengbei asked Lu Xiu,

"Dr. Lu, tell me the truth. Does Huawei really have to use Red Star's patents and protocols for charging?"

"Is there no other way?"

Lu Xiu looked into Yu Chengbei's eyes and said seriously, "President Yu, almost all routes for high-voltage fast-charging technology have been patented by Red Star. Our lab has a low-voltage high-current solution similar to OPQO's, but with this kind of solution, we face huge problems once we hit 30 watts."

"First is the size of the charger, which isn't actually that important. What's important is the second point: the charging heat problem. According to the law of conservation of energy, heat is unavoidable."

"So we either get Red Star's patent authorization to develop our own protocol, or we can only use Red Star's existing solutions and support their fast-charging protocol."

"Other than these, we have no other way."

"Xiaomi is currently using Red Star's protocol."

At the beginning of the year, Lu Xiu told Yu Chengbei that Huawei's lab had broken through 18 watts of power. At that time, Yu Chengbei still fantasized that their own lab could achieve higher power this year and develop Huawei's own fast-charging solution and private protocol, but he didn't expect all the development paths to be blocked by Red Star.

And now Lu Xiu's words completely shattered Yu Chengbei's fantasy.

"President Yu."

"President Yu?"

Looking at the dazed Yu Chengbei, Lu Xiu called out softly twice.

"Oh, regarding the patent licensing, I'll go contact Red Star. Red Star's baseband also uses many of our 4G patents, so we don't need to worry about Red Star not granting the license."

"Even if we use Red Star's patents in the future, we cannot give up research in this area."

Handing one's neck over to others was not Yu Chengbei's style. Using others' technology didn't mean giving up on one's own; at the very least, there had to be a backup plan.

As for the patent fees and such, Yu Chengbei didn't care. Even if Huawei sent money over, Red Star wouldn't accept it because Red Star had to pay patent fees to Huawei for 4G patents.

It was just this matter of Yangtze River Battery supplying Fruit that made Yu Chengbei a bit unhappy. You, Chen Chen, would rather provide Yangtze River Battery to Fruit than to Huawei, a fellow domestic manufacturer. Are you afraid that Red Star won't be able to compete once Huawei gets the Yangtze River Battery?

In fact, the reason Chen Chen was unwilling to supply domestic manufacturers was partly due to domestic competition.

On the other hand, how much could these domestic manufacturers afford to pay for procurement?

When Lei Jun from Xiaomi approached Chen Chen, Chen Chen casually added a few dozen yuan to the factory price and scared Lei Jun away.

Procuring a single battery cell for over a hundred yuan? How could Xiaomi still play the cost-performance game?

They couldn't afford it, they really couldn't afford it.

Furthermore, among domestic manufacturers, Red Star currently had the largest shipment volume of mid-to-high-end devices. Even if Red Star supplied Huawei, Huawei certainly wouldn't use them in low-end devices. But how many mid-to-high-end devices did Huawei ship in a year? Purchasing ten million units a year would be the absolute limit.

That wasn't even as much as the procurement quantity for a single Red Star model.

In contrast, Fruit not only had a minimum annual purchase volume of 30 million but also offered a good price.

Moreover, if Red Star were ever truly sanctioned by the USA one day, Red Star could also contact the government to add Yangtze River Battery to China's export ban list to the US, stabbing Fruit in the back without having to pay any compensation.

But all that was still far off. Who knows who will be sanctioning whom by then; maybe there won't be a USA by then, only a Washington Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China.

Regarding the future, Chen Chen had even fantasized about such a scene: In 2025, David looks at the mostly destroyed camp, finishes smoking his last leaf, and climbs into an Abrams Tank. Along with the remaining dozen or so tanks, they head toward Washington to intercept a PLA Heavy Combined Arms Brigade. But just as they leave the camp, seeing the Red Star Anti-Tank Drone flying rapidly toward him, David couldn't help but sigh—he smoked that leaf too early!