207: Do you know what a scrolling marquee is?

"After Uncle Xu returned to China, we registered a company locally, which is now Transmission Star."

"I met a fellow countryman there, also from Yu Province. He was an Engineer for Huawei building 3G base stations locally." (Mentioned in Chapter 122)

"With his help, we managed to get in touch with some of the local operators."

"Someone from Huawei?"

"They have a company in Nigeria too?" Fang Haoran asked, though he quickly realized the answer.

"That's right, Huawei has a branch there, and they have quite a bit of influence. They helped us get in touch with the local operators."

"And then? You achieved so many sales just by relying on the operators?" Fang Haoran followed up.

"It wasn't that easy."

"Last year, my research showed that the local market was almost entirely dominated by Nokia, Samsung, and Fruit. The local wealthy used Fruit and Samsung, while ordinary people mostly used Nokia."

"Outside the cities, there was basically no 3G signal. It's only gotten a bit better this year. I heard that many base stations replaced from other places were sold to local operators."

"It would probably be difficult to sell expensive thousand-yuan phones directly. Only cheap hundred-yuan phones could potentially open up the market. I also found that their operator coverage isn't as strong as in China; often, you have to change your SIM card just by moving to a different area."

"I thought at the time, since there are so many operators here and Nokia and Samsung are all single-SIM single-standby, if I had the headquarters develop a 4-SIM 4-standby phone, wouldn't that solve a major pain point for the locals?"

"Coincidentally, Uncle Xu sent a message and brought out the secret plan CEO Lu gave him before he left. It said that President Chen instructed that when opening up the local market, we must pay attention to the issue of multiple operators; it would be best to have dual-SIM, or even triple-SIM standby."

"So I had the headquarters develop a 4-SIM 4-standby phone, with the price not exceeding 500 rmb."

"When the headquarters sent the prototype, I was completely stunned. 6-SIM 6-standby, a 5000mAh battery, massive speakers, and even marquee lights!"

"Can you believe it? It even had marquee lights!"

"The phone was just a bit big, like a brick, and the performance wasn't great. It could barely play videos or run chat software."

After finishing, Liu Qi opened the car's refrigerator, took out a bottle of water, and downed half of it in one go. "Hey, what water is this? The packaging is quite unique."

Zhi Peng also took out a bottle. "Icelandic Glacial?"

"What brand is that? Never heard of it."

"Anyway, it's definitely not Ice Dew. Just drink it."

Fang Haoge watched the two finish their water and then asked, "So you broke into the market with that 6-SIM 6-standby phone?" He was holding back laughter as he spoke, unable to imagine what a 6-SIM 6-standby phone with marquee lights would even look like.

"No, the big operators there didn't give us the time of day," Zhi Peng said.

"Through small operators, we sold over a hundred thousand units by February this year. I felt that was too slow, so I came up with a pretty crazy advertisement," Liu Qi said sheepishly.

"How crazy?" Fang Haoge was becoming more and more interested in these two.

Finding local pain points through research, having the domestic team develop specific products, and then using crazy advertisements to build brand awareness—it seemed Liu Qi truly had talent.

"Him? He spent money to paint entire streets in several major Nigerian cities with Red Star mobile phone advertisements."

"Just using paint, he covered the walls of entire streets with advertisements for 6-SIM 6-standby and ultra-long battery life."

"There isn't a local now who doesn't know Transmission Star phones. On those streets where we painted the ads, people go there every day just to see them," Zhi Peng said openly, seeing that Liu Qi was too embarrassed to speak.

"That really is... crazy enough." Fang Haoran clicked his tongue. That could only happen in Africa. If someone tried to paint an entire street in China, the city management would likely show up before they even started.

"At that time, to paint the ads, we used dozens of engineering teams and bought up all the local paint. In the end, we had to bring in stock from other cities to meet the demand."

"And just like that, one advertisement campaign made Transmission Star phones famous."

Fang Haoge gave the two a thumbs up in admiration.

If nothing else, the creativity was truly impressive.

Wall advertisements covering an entire street—one couldn't imagine how spectacular it was without seeing it in person.

"Although the initial investment was a bit high, looking at it now, the effect has been great. In the first quarter, by cooperating with local operators and mobile phone malls, we sold 2.3 million units."

"In the second quarter, word of mouth spread, and we sold over 4 million units."

"It's just that the base station construction here is too poor and data is expensive. Otherwise, our Transmission Star Q1 would definitely sell even more."

Fang Haoge nodded thoughtfully. Africa was a place where some areas were relatively wealthy, but most were quite poor.

Since Liu Qi and the others could tailor their medicine to the disease by developing models specifically to solve local pain points, he could learn from them if he really took on the responsibility for the Middle East market in the future.

The Middle East wasn't like China or Africa; it was a place where the rich were extremely wealthy and the poor were truly poor.

The African market was operated by a newly established independent company, but there was no need to establish a new company for the Middle East; he just needed to bring over the products from the headquarters.

The only difference was that he could establish a new brand specifically for the wealthy, making ultra-luxurious custom phones like Vertu and Fruit.

But all that was still far off. Fang Haoge was just thinking; what if CEO Lu wasn't willing to put him in the Middle East?

The car fell silent as the Rolls-Royce drove smoothly along the highway, soon arriving in front of the Olaya Hotel that Abdullah had prepared for Lu Weiqi.

"Mr. Lu, our Prince has booked this entire hotel specifically to serve the Red Star launch event."

"Please follow me, everyone."

As the elevator reached the 26th floor, even the well-traveled Lu Weiqi couldn't help but marvel at the Little Prince's grand gesture.

"Mr. Lu, our Prince is currently occupied with some matters. He invites you to have dinner with him this evening. I will come to pick you up when the time comes."

"For now, I won't disturb you further."