Chapter 49 Caught Off Guard

On May 1st, Damai held a press conference.

This press conference was preheated for a long time, but the confidentiality work was done very well.

The original intention of Damai was to make a smartphone.

Before the smartphone came out, they first made a UI based on the Android system, which was not a field that TT was involved in, so TT didn't pay much attention to this product.

Damai also made an instant messaging APP, Mixin, which directly competed with TT and was the focus of TT.

However, the number of users of Mixin is currently in the millions, and it has not yet become popular.

And in terms of function, it is similar to the instant messaging applications on the market, and there is nothing to copy, so TT is not very nervous.

According to the outside world's prediction, this press conference should have an updated version of the UI and new functions on Mixin.

As for Damai making smartphones, the outside world is actually not very optimistic.

Although Damai was originally established to make smartphones, it is a new player in the mobile phone industry.

Moreover, the founder of Damai used to work in the Internet and software, which is a dimensional wall different from mobile phone hardware.

There is neither industrial chain resource support nor solution manufacturer cooperation.

In other words, it is to start from scratch.

Smartphones have just emerged, and the top players are still international manufacturers such as Peach and Eight Stars Eight Arrows.

The backbone of domestic mobile phone manufacturers has always been solution companies. Before they had mature solutions, major domestic mobile phone brands were still in a state of anxiety but could only fish.

Now more than 70% of the combat power of solution manufacturers is still on feature phones. Although smartphones are also being developed, they have not yet made a decent name.

The fundamental reason is that MTK, which has always provided overall solutions to solution manufacturers, has failed in the baseband chip for smartphones.

In other words, if you want to make a smartphone, you can only use Qualcomm's chips at this stage. That is equivalent to changing to an unfamiliar platform, the power of R&D investment is huge, and the first batch of solutions produced is likely to fail, which means that the shipment volume is low.

Solution companies have to collect royalties for each shipped machine, and it is not cost-effective if the shipment is small. Besides, the sales of feature phones are still very good. Although the domestic market is declining now, overseas markets such as Africa and India are selling well.

So solution companies are not in a hurry to transform into smartphones.

Even if there are solutions under development, they are the kind that domestic brand manufacturers pay NRE (one-time engineering expenses). In fact, they are just using the manufacturer's development fees to build technical reserves.

The big head is still waiting for MTK's new baseband chip. After all, they have cooperated for a long time and are familiar with each other's products and interpersonal relationships. More importantly, they can always make money with MTK, but there is no historical proof whether they can make money with Qualcomm.

As for mobile phone brand manufacturers, it is also a helpless move. Today's smartphone users are all mid-to-high-end business people, and they have to use Qualcomm to fight and occupy some market share. Anyway, MTK is not available yet, so we can't let it be a successor.

That is why TT was forced to choose to cooperate with Taiwanese manufacturers for the smartphone to be released in August. Although TT Technology is a giant in the Internet, it is not a serious mobile phone seller.

Solution vendors also understand this point. TT Technology cannot become a long-term customer and ship in large quantities. Therefore, under the premise of a shortage of manpower in smartphone R&D, the priority is to accept orders from mobile phone brand manufacturers.

In other words, TT is despised...

The overall environment for smartphone R&D in China is like this. Therefore, the consensus of the outside world is that Damai will work with Qualcomm on its own and it will be good if it can release a smartphone in September this year, taking advantage of the golden September and silver October schedule.

It is just the iteration of UI and Mixin, and it coincides with the holiday, so the media expectations are not high, and there is a passive and slack mentality of being forced to operate.

Competitors are not nervous either, anyway, heavyweight things like mobile phones will definitely not come out.

The only ones who are in high spirits are Damai fans, a group of young people, and I don’t know what’s so exciting.

But everyone is used to it, and they are excited about whatever Damai releases.

Because Damai has always been promoting the so-called "sense of participation", allowing fans to participate in the product design and development process through community forums.

So Damai fans have a sense of pride in any new product of Damai, as if they really made it themselves.

This kind of gameplay did not exist in the product development process in the past. Although competitors think it is a bit fresh, they think it is more of a gimmick.

What do users know? They are neither professional product developers nor technical experts. They keep nagging and raising this demand and that idea. What is the difference between them and the client who does not know how to give orders blindly?

It will only affect my sword drawing, uh, the speed of development, so almost no one imitates it.

Moreover, Damai targets young people under the age of 25. Smartphones are more than 3,000 yuan. Other mobile phone manufacturers think that this part of people has insufficient purchasing power. Early smartphones should be aimed at business people.

Therefore, the industry is somewhat disdainful of Damai's approach. Newbies are newbies.

However, what surprised everyone was that Damai completely ignored the feelings of its competitors.

Directly released a smartphone!

Born for fever, the first smartphone for young people.

The very shameless price of 1,699!

The entire domestic mobile phone industry was stunned for a while!

We found a solution manufacturer that is developing a mobile phone with a price range of 2199-2599, but you just offered 1699!

You are breaking the rules! How can we make a living!

This group of Internet-born people is too much. You are used to free things and making money from the wool of pigs, but we don’t!

Get lost!

The only ones who are boiling are the barley fans and the media who don’t have time to write articles!

Fortunately, Barley is a company that pays great attention to public relations. They are very considerate and friendly and have prepared a large number of promotional materials. Media friends can save articles in minutes and brush up the media’s goodwill.

In fact, Barley Company seized this holiday period and made the media have no time to react. They can only publish the articles prepared by themselves in advance, with the same tone and full of praise.

This time, the media has become a passive water army of Barley.

And this is Barley’s conspiracy. You praise me today, and if you want to turn against me another day, your image will be damaged.

Therefore, many media lost their footing and ended up standing on the side of Damai for their entire career.

TT Technology was shocked!

It is almost a consensus in the industry that the first wave of smartphones should be business phones.

TT’s active users are mainly young people, so they had no choice but to release a low-end smartphone priced at 1,800 yuan, and this price was already very low.

But they never expected that Damai would go against them directly!

They even gave a floor price of 1,699 yuan. Calculating the cost, each machine was lost!

The first batch of 500,000 units was released, and Damai fans with F codes could make reservations first and receive the goods one month later.

It only took one minute to reserve all 500,000 units.

The second batch of 2 million units was released, and reservations were made on June 1st.

The third batch of 4 million units was released, and reservations were made on July 1st.

In other words, by the time TT Technology launched its mobile phone in August, 6.5 million Damai units had been shipped, and Mixin had at least 6.5 million new users!

TT is really anxious. They want 1800 yuan per unit, and they are targeting the same circle of users.

How can they sell this!

During the May Day holiday, TT Technology, which was on vacation, was caught off guard.