Chapter 375 Finding Another Way Out
While Ashish was thinking about using VCD discs to make a small fortune for his family, Ron was drinking with Oda at Sapphire.
"Sulsan, I didn't expect there is such a good place in Mumbai." Oda stared at the direction of the stage, almost unable to move his eyes away.
"People used to come to Mumbai to visit the Gateway of India," Ron said, shaking his glass happily. "Now, they come to Mumbai to visit Sapphire."
"It's really nice. There's a lack of bars with this kind of atmosphere in Japan."
"Here, as long as you have money, you can become a customized star. You can be Shah Rukh Khan." Ron squinted his eyes and looked at the bar.
Like he said, the Sapphire is full of those paunchy people with money.
No matter how old, fat, or ugly he is, as long as he takes out some money, he can become the most handsome guy in the audience.
If he ordered a song, he would own every minute of it. He would sing along with the music, tilt his head back, wave his hands, look affectionately at the dancer who temporarily acted as the heroine, and sing with emotion.
The dancers don't sing live, but lip-sync their movements to the movie. All the movie songs are pre-recorded, easily making every guest feel "different".
"No wonder there are so many people downstairs, they like it here very much." Oda nodded thoughtfully.
"Yeah, five minutes of attention. Even a car mechanic can come to a bar and get five minutes of attention from a dancer."
Sapphire is so popular that Lucca has expanded its perimeter in the past two years to accommodate more guests.
The first floor became larger, about three times larger than before, and the entry threshold was removed.
Whether he is a car mechanic, a homeless person, a businessman in South Mumbai, or a wealthy businessman, he has to deal with big and strong men during the day and listen to the nagging of his fat wife at night.
Sapphire might be the only place where they could openly look at beautiful girls, beautiful and young girls, young enough to be their daughters.
Of course, there is no threshold on the first floor, but all floors above the second floor are membership-based.
And you can't reach the second floor from the first floor, you have to go up from another entrance of Sapphire.
However, you can see the scene downstairs clearly through the one-way glass upstairs, completely without any reservation.
The game of looking down at the world and observing the various aspects of human life is the favorite of the guests upstairs.
Not to mention that the entrance of Sapphire is now decorated with the logo of a star-rated restaurant.
Oda couldn't put the Tandoori chicken on the plate down anymore; the delicious pink chicken whetted his appetite.
The meat is so tender that you can almost hear the sound of live chickens being slashed in the kitchen.
This Sapphire is really nice. It has food, drinks and fun. What a great place.
He had been to India many times and had vaguely heard of this place, but out of caution about red-light districts, he had only visited it today.
"Sulsan, cheers to our pleasant cooperation in the past!"
"Cheers!" Ron raised his glass with a smile.
It can be seen that Oda is in a good mood, and he certainly has reason to be happy.
After three years of cooperation between NEC and Sur Electric, they finally received all the balance payments!
Yes, Sur Electric has suddenly made great efforts in the past six months, and the speed of transferring money has become faster and faster.
The reason is that they are preparing to start new cooperation.
Sur Electric has set its sights on refrigerators, but unfortunately India's local compressor technology is really poor.
As for Todai, they are a bit overwhelmed as they are at a turning point in independent innovation.
In the past, Todai's refrigerator compressors were also imported from Japan. After more than a decade of development, they gradually began to develop their own technology.
Ron wanted to "jointly develop" but it has not been successful yet.
There was no other way, so after searching everywhere, I ended up back in Japan.
Practice makes perfect. NEC also has refrigerator technology.
So, Sur Electric used the temptation of paying off the final payment to successfully persuade Oda to go to the headquarters to negotiate the transfer of compressor technology.
Don't underestimate this final payment, it's worth nearly 100 million US dollars.
NEC has not had an easy time in recent years, especially its electronic equipment division, which has seen a significant decline in sales.
It seems that the financial report shows an increase in net profit, but in fact, that is the profit from the sale of securities and land.
To put it bluntly, it's purely for the sake of making the data look good.
If Oda can bring back $100 million in cash, it would definitely be a great achievement.
The NEC headquarters is living a miserable life and of course has a deep dislike for the business credibility of Indians.
However, the temptation of the balance was real. After a long internal debate, they finally agreed to Oda's application.
Sur Electric paid off the final payment in exchange for NEC's concessions on refrigerator compressors.
At present, the two parties have almost finished the talks, and Ron readily agreed that the payment period for the refrigerator will not exceed three months.
This thing is too expensive, and I guess its sales won't improve much in the first two years after its release.
Since he doesn't have much money, there's no need for him to hold on to it.
Well, he also has another little trick up his sleeve.
"Mr. Oda, just look at the sapphire and you'll see that Mumbai is as prosperous as any international metropolis."
"Yes, Mumbai is a good place, and Sapphire is an even better place." He laughed.
"Yes, my favorite city is Mumbai. Many people here have started using mobile phones. What do you think about the future prospects of this industry?"
"Hey, Mr. Soul, are you planning to cooperate with NEC in the mobile phone business?" Oda asked seriously.
NEC's technical strength is indeed very strong, with a rich product range from chips to various industrial equipment to consumer electronics.
Japan's land area is small, so companies tend to focus on overseas markets. If Sol wants to discuss mobile phone cooperation with NEC, it's not impossible; it fits in with their expansion strategy.
However, the cooperation model and profit sharing are worth discussing in detail, as this is the world's cutting-edge technology.
"Mobile phones are still too much for Suer Electric. I'm talking about communication services."
"Huh?" Oda was stunned.
"To be honest, I recently obtained a telecommunications license and am preparing to enter the telecommunications market."
"Yoshi!" Oda looked at Ron with even greater respect.
He knew that Indian telecom licenses were difficult to obtain and expensive. He didn't have any connections, so he didn't even think about it.
He admired Ron's vision even more. Mobile phones must be the future, and NEC had already started betting on it.
But in India, where everything moves slowly, few people have such foresight.
It is remarkable that Ron was able to get an entry ticket early on when the global market was still in its infancy.
"So Mr. Soul, you mean..."
"GSM base station." Ron said softly.
NEC is also the world's leading supplier of 2G technology base stations, providing both GSM and CDMA standards, which are widely used in Europe and Asia.
The four brands in the world that can currently provide communication equipment on a large scale are Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and NEC.
NEC dominated half of the domestic market in Japan, and its products were time-tested, which Ron still believed in.
After hearing his needs, Oda immediately became alert and no longer as absent-minded as before.
Communication equipment and mobile base stations are things that can influence a country's communication standards.
Of course NEC is interested, especially since India has a population of one billion and the market is incredibly huge.
If he can lead NEC to enter the Indian market on a large scale, then...
Well, it’s not impossible to dream about a board seat at the headquarters.
"What price is NEC willing to offer?" Ron interrupted his fantasy.
"Well, our base station design focuses on compatibility and large-scale deployment. It also supports multi-carrier configuration and high-capacity communications, and has been widely praised in the European market."
"Yes, but we are partners, aren't we? We have gotten along very well in the past three years." Ron began to play the emotional card.
"Mr. Soul, I agree with you. NEC's NEAX series base stations, based on the GSM platform, generally cost between $200,000 and $500,000 per unit.
"If you still need our customized service, I can offer you a 15% discount on the previous price," Oda said with a generous wave of his hand.
Ron secretly gasped when he heard this. Damn, this price is not attractive at all.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars each doesn't sound expensive.
However, the effective radius of a GSM base station is usually only 0.5-1.5 kilometers, and the actual effective coverage area is about 1.5-3.5 square kilometers.
Take Mumbai, for example. The city covers an area of about 600 square kilometers. To achieve full mobile phone coverage, it would require about 600 base stations.
At the same time, considering the numerous high-rise buildings and complex electromagnetic environment in the city, the actual number is 900 to ensure signal coverage without blind spots.
What does 900 mean? Based on an average price of $350,000, Ron would need to invest over $300 million to provide a mobile phone signal in Mumbai.
This is just Mumbai. Add Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi, and the future Chennai. Don’t even think about it without billions of dollars.
He calculated that this was several hundred billion rupees.
Shit, even if all his properties were added together, they might not be able to be sold for that much money.
Too expensive, play with hammer.
"Mr. Oda, considering the huge investment, can NEC adopt the same cooperation model as for televisions?"
"What do you mean?" Oda was stunned.
"We will build the communication network first, and then use the profits to slowly repay the balance."
"On credit?" He subconsciously raised his voice.
"Or if you can provide a loan, that would be fine too."
"Mr. Soul, you're such a joker." Oda didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "With such a large investment, headquarters can't be careless. I'm only in the Electronics Department, so it's hard for me to influence the Communications Department's decision."
"If there is a guarantee from the Indian government, can we work with you to get a loan from a Japanese bank?" Ron's eyes began to flicker.
"It's hard to say. It would require a very complex review. Also, we've never used this kind of cooperation model before, so I'm afraid it won't be that easy."
Ron sighed secretly. As expected, with an investment of billions of dollars, no one dared to take chances.
It seems that life is not easy to cheat.
He himself has some concerns, as the number of base stations currently deployed is limited to certain areas. If the entire country is to be covered, tens of thousands of base stations may be needed.
He can fool people once, but he can't fool them a second time.
Not only will your international reputation be ruined, but you will also easily damage your own brand.
Tsk, the bigger the business gets, the more Ron starts to care about his reputation.
NEC's products were still too expensive, so he turned his attention to the east.
(End of this chapter)
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