148: Lei Jun's dilemma

"President Chen, isn't that Chen Kun?"

In the guest seats of Oppo's launch event, Shen Rou whispered into Chen Chen's ear.

"Yeah, Chen Kun. He might be the spokesperson or a special guest for this new phone."

In terms of celebrity marketing and advertising, basically no manufacturer can beat Vivo and Oppo. They also have very close cooperation with Mango TV, which has the highest variety show traffic in the country. Chen Chen couldn't even remember how many celebrities these two had invited.

Anyway, for Chen Chen, who didn't pay much attention to the entertainment industry before, he could tell who was currently the hottest in the industry just by looking at the spokespersons for Blue and Oppo.

"It seems Red Star's own spokesperson needs to be put on the agenda too."

"Shen Rou, when you go back, tell Yang Tuo to come see me. After I rejected the proposal he put forward last time, has he not submitted a new one?"

"No. General Manager Yang has been busy with global marketing lately, so he probably hasn't had much time."

Hiring traffic idols like Vivo and Oppo didn't quite fit the positioning of Kunpeng mobile phones. One must know that the majority of Kunpeng mobile phone's audience were slightly older business people. If you hired a traffic idol as a spokesperson for this user group, they would probably be so repulsed that they'd stop using Kunpeng mobile phones directly.

There were young people too, but the proportion wasn't particularly high.

Jackie Chan won't work; his endorsements are cursed. What about Chen Daoming and Tony Leung?

These two are also very famous, especially Tony Leung. The movie 'The Grandmaster' from the year before last gave him unparalleled popularity, and his overall temperament also fits the positioning of Kunpeng mobile phones very well.

Oh, right, and Andy Lau. As one of the Four Heavenly Kings, Andy Lau's popularity goes without saying; he appeals to all ages, with a fan base spanning all major age groups.

Most importantly, these veteran movie stars have no risk of their reputations collapsing, unlike that Huang Gousheng.

"President Chen, Lei Jun is here too."

Shen Rou softly woke Chen Chen from his contemplation. Turning his head to look, he found that Lei Jun had actually come to the site of this launch event as well. "President Lei, a busy man like you has also come to watch this launch event?"

"Haha, at President Chen's invitation, and with the location set in the Beijing, I certainly had to come to observe and learn."

While shaking hands with Lei Jun, Chen Chen noticed that Lei Jun's entire face seemed a bit darker. He wondered what he had been busy with lately.

It couldn't be from getting a tan in the Indian market, right?

Hey, Chen Chen actually guessed right. Since the Spring Festival, Lei Jun had been busy with the Indian market. Since launching the India strategy at the end of last year, Dami Company's market share in India had been steadily rising.

Not to mention Red Star not being able to keep up, even Samsung, a veteran powerhouse in the Indian market, was being beaten back by Lei Jun's combined tactics.

Look, while Xiaomi's own domestic offline flagship stores hadn't even started, Lei Jun had already set up a Xiaomi flagship store in New Delhi, vividly demonstrating his determination to cultivate the Indian market.

With a burst of soothing music, this Oppo new product launch event also kicked off. But the opening didn't start with the release of this rotatable opqo N1; instead, it first released Oppo's Kalu OS—ColorOS.

Listening to the product manager's introduction, even Chen Chen had to admire it. This system UI was probably the best-operating interface besides MIUI, Flyme, and Starlight OS. At this stage, Oppo even brought out full-screen gesture operations.

Swiping up from the bottom of the phone returns to the home screen, which is exactly like later full-screen gesture operations.

However, the introduction of the phone was a bit lackluster. Aside from the camera that could rotate 206°, the biggest highlights of the entire machine were the back touch control and remote photo function.

Even though the product manager kept talking about humanity, technology, and aesthetics, in Chen Chen's view, the level of this machine was far inferior to the Kunpeng mobile phone.

The plastic build of the entire machine, the terrifyingly extreme bottom bezel, the 22.5-watt charging, plus a starting price as high as 3,499—for the online market, this phone had absolutely no competitiveness.

It seems the construction of offline stores needs to be accelerated. Red Star's Kunpeng series has a starting price similar to this N1, but because there aren't enough offline channels, sales haven't reached the point of sweeping the market.

Chen Chen actually didn't want to come to this launch event, but considering it was Oppo's first time holding a launch in the Beijing and their first time inviting him.

If he didn't go, it would easily lead to bad misunderstandings. Everyone in China understands that even if Red Star and other manufacturers are competitors in the phone market, the respect that should be given to these factory heads must be given.

The release of this opqo N1 didn't cause much of a stir on the internet. After all, the online market wasn't Oppo's main focus. Instead, another piece of news exploded on the Social Media Platform.

"Did I say I wanted to acquire Nvidia's processor business?"

On the way back, Chen Chen looked at the news online with a confused expression.

I clearly told Old Lu to let Xiaomi and Nvidia negotiate as they pleased, and that Red Star would only act once they failed to reach an agreement.

Why is Nvidia now saying that negotiations with Red Star have made substantial progress?

"President Chen, this is likely a smokescreen released by Nvidia, with the aim of raising the price to sell to Dami Company."

"I'll ask Old Lu first, in case he took it upon himself to contact Nvidia."

After returning to the company, before Chen Chen could go looking for him, Lu Weiqi had already come to Chen Chen's office. "President Chen, this news must have been intentionally spread by Nvidia. Last time you said not to interfere in the negotiations between Xiaomi and Nvidia, so I didn't arrange for anyone to contact them."

Chen Chen tapped the table with his finger. "Go and deny this on our official social media account. You must be firm about it!"

"Why is that Old Huang dragging our Red Star into this? Do I even care about their bit of CPU technology?"

"Old Lu, wait," Chen Chen called out to Lu Weiqi, who was about to leave.

"Wait a bit before posting the announcement. I'll give Lei Jun a call. I'm going to perform a double act with Lei Jun to put some heavy pressure on Old Huang."

With the system's latest chip technology and patents as a foundation, Chen Chen really didn't care for Nvidia's bit of chip technology. If it weren't for Nvidia also having a portion of 4G patents, Chen Chen wouldn't even have the thought of acquiring them.

"President Lei!"

"This is bad!"

Lei Jun, who had just returned to Dami Company, saw Lin Bing rushing into his office.

At this time, Lei Jun had also received the news from the Social Media Platform.

"What's the panic? Sit down and talk. I already know about Red Star's negotiations with Nvidia."

Then Lei Jun fell into deep thought. He had previously guessed that with Red Star's stance of searching for chip talent and technology by any means necessary, they would definitely intervene.

He didn't expect to actually guess it right.

If you told him that the news on the Social Media Platform wasn't spread by Old Huang, Lei Jun wouldn't believe it even if Chen Chen were beaten to death.

Now two choices lay before Lei Jun: first, to completely stop negotiating with Nvidia.

Second was to beat Red Star to it and be forced to take these technologies at a high price to satisfy Nvidia's demands.

"Sigh..."

It was truly a difficult choice for Lei Jun. This was the closest he had ever been to the technology he wanted, and it was also the most important choice that could change the entire development of Xiaomi.

He was really conflicted.