202: What father doesn't love his son?

Adding a bonus chapter for Xingfu Kongda and Hongxing's Hao; still owe one more subsequent bonus chapter. Thank you all for your support.

Today the Xiaomi fingerprint lock died and locked me out all morning; it was only fixed at noon.

...But even if we change it, where could we change it to?

The original plan was a mid-September release; that month only has the iPhone 6 as a rival, with no other new phones being released for the time being.

Regardless of whether we can beat the iPhone 6, using Fruit to boost our prestige is perfectly fine.

The price ranges are clear: one starts at over 5,000, and the other starts at over 3,000; they aren't on the same competitive track at all.

If we change the timing, it's hard to say.

Red Star's digital series and roc series haven't started any pre-release hype yet; Yu Chengbei estimates that Chen Chen plans to wait until October or November to make a big move.

As a professional manager, his market sense is very keen. Right now, the product strength of the red star 3 is a bit lacking compared to new phones, but they still have a shining k10.

The roc mobile phone is different; it's been a full year since its release, and its momentum is still very strong. Moreover, Red Star has also reduced the price of this phone by 200, so its competitiveness at 3,499 is still very sufficient.

Therefore, Yu Chengbei predicts that the roc mobile phone might be released at the end of the year. If Red Star is even more ruthless and drops the price one more time to completely squeeze out the potential of this device, it's also possible that the new phone won't be released until 2015.

"Chen Chen will likely release stock of the Red Star X; the Mate 7 has no chance of winning against this opponent."

"Release stock? Didn't Chen Chen say that ceramic materials significantly affect production capacity? The last few releases were around 100,000 units, so it's unlikely they'll release in large quantities," Zhao Ming asked.

"A massive volume is likely impossible, but it's certain to be more than now."

"Xiao Zhao, you've been in charge of Brand for so long; why do I feel like you haven't made any progress this year?"

"Is capacity insufficient just because Chen Chen says it is?"

"Believe it or not, Red Star has at least 500,000 units in stock; they are just controlling the shipment volume to market it as a high-end device that is in short supply."

"Chinese psychology is like this: the more unattainable something is, the more they want it. You still have a lot to learn."

Yu Chengbei said to Zhao Ming earnestly.

"I understand, President Yu." Zhao Ming nodded. He was a smart man, and with a little guidance from Yu Chengbei, he immediately understood the reasoning.

"Then are we really going to change the release time?"

"Not changing it."

"Disregard life and death, if you're not satisfied, just do it!"

"I don't believe a single Red Star can monopolize the Chinese mobile phone market and leave us no way to survive."

Yu Chengbei steeled himself. It was just a Red Star X; this time his stock for the Mate 7 was very sufficient, and he didn't believe he couldn't bite a piece of meat off Red Star.

"How is the progress on your Brand 6?"

Speaking of this, Zhao Ming immediately wore a bitter expression. "How else could it be? We scrapped the original design and are redoing it just like the P8."

"What are those people at Red Star thinking, coming up with a Full-Screen Display? Can't they just make phones normally?"

The first prototype of the Brand 6 had already been finalized and was ready for mold validation when the Red Star X suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

This Brand-new design instantly turned these unreleased phones into "outdated goods."

For phones like the P8 and Brand 6 that were still in the early design stages, Yu Chengbei and Zhao Ming decisively halted the current projects to conduct comprehensive redesigns.

Yu Chengbei had a hunch that the Full-Screen Display would definitely become the market mainstream within the next one to two years.

If you were still releasing non-full-screen phones by then, it was uncertain whether consumers would buy them.

To catch the first bus of the Full-Screen Display trend, they had no choice but to painfully scrap their original designs.

"The new design uses an 18:9 screen ratio with rounded corners, an all-metal body, and rear fingerprint recognition. I believe this device can be on the market by the first quarter of next year."

"It's just that benchmarking against the hongxing 4th generation might be a bit difficult."

Zhao Ming scratched his head. The Honor brand was originally created to benchmark against the Xiaomi Digital Series and the Red Star Digital Series, but he hadn't expected Red Star to directly raise the price of the digital series and come out with a shining k10.

Now Zhao Ming was a bit stumped; he feared that no matter how he promoted the Brand 6 as a rival to the red star 4, it wouldn't work.

Consumers would automatically compare this device with the shining k10.

Unlike with Samsung, Red Star didn't place any patent restrictions on Chinese domestic manufacturers for this 18:9 Full-Screen Display design.

As long as you wanted to make it, you could apply to Red Star and use it for free.

Chen Chen also understood that these appearance patent restrictions on foreign manufacturers like Samsung were only temporary; they were nothing more than a way to slow down their progress in releasing phones of this form factor.

It would be very easy to bypass them eventually.

But bypassing them would take a bit of time, and that bit of time was what Chen Chen had secured for domestic manufacturers.

It all depended on the reaction speed of the Chinese manufacturers.

Those who reacted quickly, like Huawei, immediately thought of this design approach and inquired about the patent issues with Red Star.

After obtaining the free authorization, they worked non-stop to develop new mobile phones.

Chen Chen's thinking was also simple: competition with domestic manufacturers is just competition, but the wealth stays within the country. In the future, when the Fruit-exclusive period for Yangtze River 1.0 expires, Chen Chen would also lift the restrictions on domestic manufacturers.

This would allow all domestic manufacturers to crush those foreign manufacturers in terms of battery life.

The mobile phone market is so large that even if Red Star is incredibly capable and defeats Fruit and Samsung, it wouldn't be able to swallow the whole thing in one go.

Since he couldn't eat it all himself, why not bring the manufacturers from his own country along to share the feast?

Rather than letting this money be earned by foreign manufacturers, it was better to let China earn it.

Red Star would take the high-end market, while other manufacturers would divide the mid-to-low-end markets; this was Chen Chen's long-term plan.

"Um, President Yu, the Mate 7 is already using the latest 925 chip. Do you think the 910T chip could...?" Zhao Ming asked Yu Chengbei with a forced smile.

This time, Yu Chengbei didn't refuse outright. The new mid-range chip was still under development, and it probably wouldn't be ready for mass production until the second half of next year. Zhao Ming said the Brand 6 could be launched in the first quarter of next year.

Making him wait for the chip's mass production was likely unrealistic. Sales of the P7 were showing some improvement but still hadn't met expectations; letting the Brand 6 use it could help spread the costs more quickly.

"The market situation is constantly changing. Red Star's soaring c1 is positioned as a mid-range chip, but its actual performance is even higher than our 910T chip. If I'm not given the 910T chip, no matter how high I stack the other configurations of the Brand 6, there's no way to compete."

Unconsciously, Zhao Ming also stopped mentioning benchmarking against the Red Star Digital Series; he would settle the shining k10 first before worrying about anything else.

"Fine!"

"I agree this time!"

"What father doesn't love his son!"