48: Upgrade or price reduction?

Lei Jun is not Boss Jia. He doesn't have the courage to lower the price of Redmi again. If it were Boss Jia, he wouldn't care if the Shine 2 was 799 or 699; he'd just drop a bombshell — 499, take it or leave it.

Anyway, it's the investors' money that's being lost, not my, Jia's, money.

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"No need to go back for a meeting. We'll stick to the original plan of 699, and for the first sale, we'll offer a limited-time discount of 50. Xiaomi can still afford this small loss."

"As I said before, we have money in our accounts."

It seems I still underestimated Chen Chen. I was prepared for fierce competition in the budget phone market, but I never expected it to be a direct, no-holds-barred fight.

At Huawei, the newly appointed Zhao Ming saw the announcement from Red Star and immediately rushed to Yu Chengbei's office. "President Yu, the Shine 2 has directly dropped its price by 100, now at 699. Do our Changwan phones really need to confront Red Star head-on?"

Yu Chengbei also had a headache. The budget phone market was a must-enter, after all, it accounted for a large portion of shipments and user acquisition, and it was Huawei's next strategic goal, so he couldn't back out.

"No news from Xiaomi yet?"

"Not yet, but I estimate they will release their budget phone at their press conference on the 6th. We are already behind these two companies in terms of progress, and if our pricing is higher than theirs, then our Changwan series..."

Zhao Ming didn't finish his sentence, but the meaning was clear: if the product power is insufficient and the price is still several hundred higher than the Shine 2, the possibility of failure is very high.

Yu Chengbei was also having a huge headache now. The M series sold millions of units globally in a few months. He thought this phone was Huawei's step towards high-end, and the beginning of his own success, but he didn't expect the K2V3 processor to have compatibility issues.

As the weather got hotter, more and more users reported severe phone heating, obvious lag, and even direct crashes in certain situations. Chinese consumers were fine; at most, they would complain online a few times. Once bought, it's bought. Want a refund? That's impossible.

However, overseas consumers are not as easy to deal with as Chinese users. If you don't handle problems, they will really complain to consumer associations. For this, Huawei has already carried out free product replacements and recalls in some regions, incurring huge losses.

Emergency treatment has been carried out through pushing system packages, but the effect is still not obvious. Only because the M series has a large screen and a metal body, the heat dissipation is relatively good. If it were a smaller model, this time it might really suffer a big setback.

"It doesn't matter, let them do what they want, as low as they want. Moreover, we are not the ones who should be having a headache now. Xiaomi should be much more worried than us. Lei Jun is probably going bald from worrying about the pricing."

As long as someone else is more unlucky than him, Yu Chengbei feels much more comfortable.

"President Yu, according to our plan, the Changwan X1 is expected to be officially launched in June or July. Development is very fast. Now I plan to further compress the price to see if we can also get it under 700 yuan."

After listening to Zhao Ming, Yu Chengbei thought for a moment and then rejected his idea. Since they couldn't compete with them on price, they shouldn't. They needed to change their approach.

"Don't worry about the price for now. As long as we do a good job with promotion and tell a good story, consumers will still pay, even if it's a few hundred yuan more expensive."

Yu Chengbei completely didn't want to compete with Red Star on price now. Since he couldn't win in this race, he would change his approach. You guys have low prices? I'll start with quality and design, making them look better than yours. Grasping this point is enough.

After Zhao Ming left, Yu Chengbei contacted HR again, preparing to ask about the progress of poaching someone from Samsung.

"Xiao Liu, has Yang Tuo still not agreed?"

"President Yu, not yet. He proposed that if he were to join Huawei, he must be given full control of Huawei's Brand management and marketing. He thinks our current product marketing is a mess..."

Hearing Xiao Liu's words, Yu Chengbei also gave a wry smile. Indeed, as Yang Tuo said, Huawei, in its transition period, lacked clear Brand marketing, and market marketing was all for individual products, not entirely for the Huawei Brand itself.

"You contact him again and tell him I've agreed. As long as he comes to Huawei, everything he mentioned can be handed over to him."

Yu Chengbei was burning his bridges. If Yang Tuo's Brand marketing still couldn't save Huawei, then even with Chairman Ren's full support, he would probably only have the option of resigning in disgrace.

As the date of Xiaomi's press conference drew closer, the excitement surrounding Xiaomi's new phone also grew, becoming lively.

Xiaomi had done some light pre-heating before, but Lei Jun didn't have a specific date for when the product would be offline, so he couldn't confirm the press conference time.

Budget phones are not like other models. If your price is indeed low enough, and you release a 'PPT phone,' there will definitely be consumers willing to wait for you.

But now, the price has no advantage at all. If there's no stock or if it goes on sale a month after the release, the hype will be completely wasted.

"I heard Xiaomi is also entering the budget phone market this time. I just don't know how the product compares to the Shine 2."

"The Shine 2 at 699 is just too tempting. I've already placed an order. I don't care about Xiaomi; I don't believe Xiaomi's budget phone will be better than the Shine 2 and cheaper."

"Honestly, Red Star really did a good job this time. Users who purchased within a month even received compensation. Who would have thought, in the past, that manufacturers would compensate consumers for price drops?"

"I'm crying, my order date was just over a month ago, but I called customer service, and Red Star still gave me a discount coupon."

"This time, Xiaomi will upgrade the mi 2. Look, the red star 2 has directly dropped its price by 200. If it weren't for wanting to see what upgrades the mi 2 has, I would have already bought the red star 2."

"I don't know what will be upgraded. The poster suggests it might be the processor. Do you think there's a possibility that Xiaomi will upgrade and also cut the price?"

"Upgrading specs and cutting prices? You're dreaming. It's good enough if it doesn't increase in price. Price cut? Is that possible?"

"Why not possible? Look, didn't Red Star even compensate consumers with discount coupons? Given Lei Juns nickname's personality, it's really possible. I'll blindly guess the mi 2 upgraded version will be 1899!"

"That's true. Now I feel that among domestic manufacturers, only Xiaomi and Red Star truly consider consumers. My dad insisted on buying some Huawei Mate 1 back then, and now it's so laggy it's almost dead. Yesterday, he almost burned his hand. You know, at a price of over 3000 yuan, I told him to buy a Kunpeng mobile phone, but he wouldn't listen, insisting on Huawei, saying it's an old Brand."

"Haha, I saw from overseas websites that Huawei directly recalled or replaced phones in some areas. Luckily, my dad listened to my advice and bought a Kunpeng mobile phone. Now he brags to everyone about how fast his phone charges and how beautiful the photos are."

"Kunpeng mobile phone? This phone doesn't deserve my Ye Liangchen's status. Besides Fruit and Samsung, when did domestic phones ever qualify as high-end? Knock-offs are knock-offs, always knock-offs."

"The person upstairs, go die with your Fruit and Samsung! The Kunpeng mobile phone completely crushes Fruit and Samsung in every aspect except the system, okay?"

"A 5V1A phone also claims to be high-end? I, Long Aotian, am the first to disagree!"