In this way, when the mobile payment platform becomes available, it will already have a user base, making it easier to start promoting the service.
For the next period of time, Lin Chen spent every day looking at Wang Sicong's Weibo and coding, which was comparable to a modern version of studying hard and actually greatly improved his coding speed.
After getting off work on the 15th, Lin Chen, unusually, did not leave on time. Instead, he went with An Rou to the Xiaomi conference room on the 27th floor to wait with Lei Jun and the people from Xiaomi's mobile phone R&D department for the Xiaomi phones to be available for purchase.
Finally, at 7:50 p.m., after confirming one last time that Xiaomi's official website servers were working properly, everyone started to get nervous.
On the projection screen in the conference room, sales figures for Xiaomi's official website, JD.com, and Taobao were displayed on the left, center, and right sides, respectively.
"Brother Jun, have all the phones been shipped to the JD.com warehouse?"
Since the logistics park was not yet completed, Lin Chen asked Liu Qiangdong to borrow JD.com's logistics warehouse in Shanghai to store Xiaomi phones. Liu Qiangdong readily agreed, since the phones wouldn't be stored there for more than a few days anyway.
"The goods were just shipped over yesterday. Once the flash sale ends tonight, we'll organize the shipping address information and send it over, and then they'll start shipping. Whether it's from Xiaomi's official website, JD.com's flagship store, or Taobao's flagship store, we're using JD Express to ship them to customers as quickly as possible."
"Um."
"Mr. Lei, Mr. Lin, ten seconds left on the countdown," the secretary reminded them.
Lei Jun and Lin Chen stopped talking and started looking at the big screen, silently reciting something in their minds.
"Five...four...three...two...one!"
Just after 8 o'clock, the first transaction volume to break zero was on Xiaomi's official website. Immediately afterwards, the transaction volumes of Taobao and JD.com also broke zero and then soared rapidly.
Ten minutes later, the numbers on the big screen suddenly stopped moving.
"Huh? Is it stuck? Why isn't it moving?"
The secretary quickly ran out to ask the technical department staff, then ran back and shouted, "President Lei, President Lin, one million units have been sold out!"
Lei Jun was so shocked he was speechless. In just ten minutes, a million phones had been sold?
Seeing that Lei Jun didn't react, Lin Chen became anxious and quickly shouted, "Hurry up and keep putting it on the shelves for sale!"
"But we've already sold out of phones."
"Oh dear, take me there quickly! I'm so anxious! Sell them first, then we can produce more and ship them out at the same time!"
The secretary quickly led Lin Chen over. When the employees in the technical department saw Lin Chen running over, they stood up and were about to greet him when Lin Chen sat down in their seats and quickly changed the available quantities on the official website, Taobao, and JD.com, adding the words "pre-sale" to the end of the original product names.
The entire movement was fluid and smooth, taking less than two minutes.
Sure enough, soon after, shouts came from the conference room: "It moved! The transaction amount moved!"
Lin Chen breathed a sigh of relief and opened Weibo on a computer belonging to a member of the technical department. In just two minutes since the stock shortage, the news that Xiaomi phones were sold out had become a trending topic, with countless netizens starting to curse in the comments.
"What? It's only been a short time, and it's already gone?"
"I just got home from get off work and turned on my computer, and you're already telling me it's sold out?"
"Guys, refresh the page, it's available again! Wait, but this time it's a pre-sale?"
"Oh, forget about pre-sales, let's just place an order now, lest it sell out again."
Lin Chen closed Weibo, stood up, and patted the technician on the shoulder: "Thank you for your hard work. Once it's sold out, you won't need to put it back on the shelves."
"Oh, okay, Mr. Lin."
Lin Chen returned to the conference room and sat down. Lei Jun had already realized what was happening and said with a smile, "Brother, you're quick to react."
"Well, it's my fault for not expecting it to be so popular. I thought we could sell at most 1 million units a day, but who would have thought it would sell out in ten minutes? So we temporarily put another 200,000 units on the shelves of three channels, for a total of 600,000 units. Brother Jun, hurry up and tell Foxconn so they can start production."
"Okay, I'll make the call right away."
Lei Jun took out his phone and called Foxconn, placing an additional order for 600,000 Xiaomi phones. It was an urgent order, the kind that needed to be placed online.
As soon as Lei Jun hung up the phone, the transaction volume on the big screen stopped moving.
The secretary, being very sensible, ran out to ask.
"Mr. Lei, Mr. Lin, all 600,000 units have been sold out."
Lei Jun asked in surprise, "Brother, are you still selling?"
Lin Chen smiled and shook his head: "We're not selling anymore. I estimate that it will take Foxconn a week to produce this 600,000 order. Although we are selling pre-orders, we can't keep customers waiting too long. The shopping experience would be too bad. Besides, what you can't buy is always more desirable, isn't it?"
Then, Lin Chen said to his secretary, "Let's post a battle report using Xiaomi Technology's official Weibo account."
"Yes, Mr. Lin." The secretary excitedly accepted the order and left.
At 8:30 pm on April 15, Xiaomi Technology's official Weibo account posted a message that triggered an earthquake in the entire mobile phone industry.
"Warmest congratulations on Xiaomi Mi 1 sales exceeding 1.6 million units! Thank you for your support. [Celebration Poster]"
"Holy crap, I couldn't even get one of those 1.6 million units? Who actually managed to buy them?"
"Upstairs, I bought it."
"Bought +1".
"Bought +1".
"Ahhh, I couldn't buy one either. I'm willing to add 500. Can anyone sell me one?"
"Rich guy, contact me via private message."
However, Lin Chen quickly replied to the post requesting resale using his own Weibo account: "Dear friends, we do not support everyone paying extra to buy Xiaomi phones. Once our production capacity catches up, we will resume sales soon. Please look forward to it."
"Wow, Lin Gou, oh wait, I mean, President Lin himself has stepped in!"
"Yeah, the phone is only 1999, and you want to add 500? Bro, calm down."
Meanwhile, the big names in the mobile phone industry panicked. Nokia's China headquarters held an emergency meeting overnight, as did Motorola's and Samsung's China headquarters.
People analyzed and discussed the fact that Xiaomi sold 1.6 million phones in half an hour. In the end, Nokia said that Symbian was the best in the world, but it could take a look at the design of Xiaomi phones.
The president of Motorola China fell into deep thought. It was later said that the president of China held a video conference with senior executives at Motorola headquarters in his office all night.
Samsung was initially incredulous, but after several rounds of discussion, they became confident, believing that Xiaomi phones were just a flash in the pan and that once Samsung's new models went on sale, Xiaomi phones would be utterly crushed. It's just that the Koreans' logic is incomprehensible.
Lin Chen was unaware of these things, and even if he knew, he wouldn't care. He only had one rival: Apple.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
