130: Chapter 130: Three Key Strategies for the African Mobile Phone Market

The models Huayao Communications planned to sell in Africa

were still primarily centered on the xiaomi 4.

Additionally, there were some other lower-end phones,

including old inventory that had been piling up in Bai Jingqing's shop.

In terms of configuration and functionality,

these phones were already considered quite outdated in the Dragon Country market.

However, if they were taken to the African market,

as long as the price was right,

they would still be very popular.

This also included low-end models like OPPO, VIVO, and Redmi;

selling these in Africa should also be very well-received.

But even for these phones specifically supplied to Africa,

Bai Jingqing made many adjustments.

For example, the xiaomi 4

was not the standard version of the xiaomi 4.

Bai Jingqing specifically selected some components from the system

and integrated them into the original xiaomi 4 through the system's assembly function,

mainly strengthening several aspects of the xiaomi 4.

First, the speakers had to be excellent.

People in Africa generally cannot afford headphones,

so they prefer using the speakerphone.

And perhaps out of some biological instinct,

they particularly like speakers that are loud enough;

the louder the sound, the more they like it.

So Bai Jingqing specifically purchased a batch of speakers from the system,

making the maximum volume of the new phone more than twice that of the previous xiaomi 4.

This was the first prong of his strategy.

The second prong was screen brightness.

The African region is very sunny year-round,

with intense sunlight almost every day.

This led to a problem:

when the sunlight was too strong,

they couldn't see the content displayed on the phone screen clearly.

Although Samsung, the previous hegemon of the African mobile market, has the best screens in the world,

it was, after all, selling low-end models in Africa.

On these low-end devices,

Samsung was certainly unwilling to use its best screens,

opting instead for slightly lower quality screens from other series,

where peak brightness wasn't particularly emphasized.

Bai Jingqing seized upon this pain point for African users

and specifically made the peak brightness of the new xiaomi 4 exceptionally high.

No matter how strong the sun was while looking at the phone,

the content on the screen could be seen crystal clear.

Finally, the third prong was photography.

Logically speaking,

most phones in the Dragon Country domestic market already have very decent cameras,

and are even in a leading position globally.

There was no need to specifically adjust the camera specs for phones being sent to Africa.

But what Bai Jingqing wanted to do

was not to upgrade the camera specs,

but to make unique adjustments tailored to the African market.

The photography of other phones wasn't suited for Africa,

and the main reason was that

Africans were just too damn dark!

As dark as a lump of coal!

According to the photography algorithms of most phones,

when taking photos of Black people,

the resulting images couldn't even distinguish their facial features!

Furthermore, the built-in beauty effects on most phones were just mechanical whitening and skin smoothing.

While these effects were somewhat effective for Asian and White people,

Black people looked very strange when photographed this way,

presenting a very unnatural, patchy black-and-white look.

To address this,

Bai Jingqing put in a lot of hard work.

He didn't turn to the system for help with this photography prong.

If he were to ask the system for help,

the only thing it could do would be to increase the sensor's light sensitivity

or swap in a higher-spec, more advanced camera module.

If he did that, the corresponding costs would rise significantly.

If he asked the system for help

and solved the problem of photographing Black people by upgrading the hardware like that,

then the cameras on the phones sold in the African market would be even better than those sold domestically in Dragon Country.

That wouldn't do.

If people found out,

they would surely say he was pandering to foreigners.

Moreover, he had his own personal principles;

since he was a manufacturer expanding out from Dragon Country,

he first had to ensure one thing:

no matter the time,

the various devices he supplied to Dragon Country would always be better than those supplied to other countries.

So how could he solve the problem of photographing Black people?

Huayao Communications' cooperation with the nearby prestigious Tiankai University was in full swing.

During this period of cooperation,

he had also recruited many talents into his company,

including many computer science experts, of course.

So he specifically issued a bounty to all the major enterprises in Tiankai Park,

as well as the students and teachers at Tiankai University,

requesting a specialized optimization algorithm

specifically for photographing Black people.

Under the premise that the camera specs remained unchanged,

they were to strive for better photographic results.

For the first person to develop it,

Huayao Communications would award 1 million.

Under the lure of a large sum of money,

results were achieved very quickly.

After Bai Jingqing inspected it,

he also fulfilled his promise.

Bai Jingqing arranged for the engineers to import this algorithm

into all phones supplied to Africa while they were flashing the systems.

With this, his three-pronged strategy for the African mobile market was complete.

He believed that with these three prongs,

even if he didn't lower prices,

Huayao's phones would be very popular in the African market.

Of course, cost-effectiveness was also a given.

Despite making many special changes

and performing specialized optimizations,

the selling price of the xiaomi 4 was still equivalent to 1,999 RMB.

The xiaomi 4 was also sold as Huayao's current highest-spec flagship in the African region.

The prices for other feature phones and low-end models like VIVO, OPPO, and Redmi were much lower.

Bai Jingqing actually wanted to launch even more impressive flagships in Africa,

such as the xiaomi 5 or xiaomi 6,

but the key issue was,

the African people couldn't afford them!

In Africa, only focusing on cost-effectiveness has a future.

After all, people there can barely afford clothes

and don't have enough to eat;

how could you expect them to afford high-end phones?

Bai Jingqing did not intend to follow Samsung into a price war.

The prices of Huayao's models were basically consistent with the prices Samsung had previously sold its phones for in Africa.

Therefore, he felt that the people in Africa could accept this price,

and it shouldn't cause too much resentment.

Once everything was ready,

Huayao shipped the goods from Dragon Country to Africa.

After stocking up sufficiently,

and thanks to Ding Kuan's hard work,

launch events were soon held simultaneously in multiple African countries,

releasing many different models.

Upon learning of Huayao's pricing,

Choi Jong-eun, President of Samsung Electronics' Communications Department, felt completely at ease.

In his words,

he didn't see how Samsung could possibly lose this round!

Samsung was a major international brand

with the backing of brand power,

and they were still several hundred yuan cheaper than Huayao's phones.

Meanwhile, Huayao was just a newcomer in the African market.

Setting their prices so high right from the start—

did one even need to ask which one the African people would choose?

Soon, the Africans would vote with their feet

and show that Dragon Country manufacturer exactly what kind of phones they liked.