2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 602 Promotional Vision
At dawn on November 1, the three middle floors of the Flash Drive Building were brightly lit.

After going public, the company expanded its workforce again, growing from an initial single-story office to a three-story office area.

If you get closer, you can hear that it's very noisy on every floor, which means there are a lot of people going to work.

Just this morning, the 4 trillion yuan investment plan was officially announced, with detailed plans for the revitalization of ten key industries.

A relevant official from the National Development and Reform Commission also explained the source of funds for the 4 trillion yuan in new investment. Of the 4 trillion yuan in investment, the new central government investment accounts for about 29.5% of the total investment.

The remaining responsibilities are the responsibility of local governments, including local fiscal budgets, issuing local government bonds, policy loans, corporate bonds, and private investment, etc.

"The city investment company is about to step onto the historical stage," Tan Jincheng murmured.

Before 2009, urban investment companies were just small entities with very limited power. They had better partners to cooperate with local governments, but wherever Tan Jincheng went, he always cooperated with the local urban investment companies.

This behavior is somewhat incomprehensible to some people. In its early days, Flash Group was not very strong, which could be attributed to other investment institutions looking down on it. However, Flash Group is now fully capable of cooperating with stronger institutions.

Flash Group is currently a highly sought-after company, with many people wanting to cooperate with it, but it still insists on cooperating with urban investment companies.

With the announcement of the detailed 4 trillion yuan plan, the status of Xie Hongjun, Zhou Kai, and others will surely rise, and Tan Jincheng's years of planning will soon be reaped.

That said, Tan Jincheng has acquired several plots of land from Beicang City Investment. If he wants to acquire land in the future, he will need to cooperate with the city investment company. With the previous cooperation, even if he is not a professional real estate company, Tan Jincheng has a great advantage.

"Is this why you've been cooperating with local government financing vehicles (LGFVs) all this time? How did you know that the status of LGFVs would improve?"

Although Tan Jincheng spoke very softly, Gu Qingqing still heard him.

"I think it's because of the land they own; land is the greatest resource in any era."

That's absolutely true; whoever controls the land controls everything. But that's only on the surface. Why the land owned by the city investment company is still allocated to them is something Tan Jincheng didn't explain.

Gu Qingqing didn't ask for details. Usually, such ambiguous answers meant that Tan Jincheng was unwilling to talk about things in detail. In short, he really had a lot of amazing qualities.

Everyone knows that land is an important resource, but precisely because of this, no one expected that Xiaokarami City Investment would rise to prominence directly, rather than being overtaken by other departments.

"I wonder how sales will be this year. The competition is fierce."

Although she has decided to officially step down as CEO at the end of this year, Gu Qingqing is still very worried about Orange Products' sales performance during Singles' Day.

In its IPO prospectus, Orange Technology mentioned the demand in the domestic discount market regarding Orange Products' business model. It was projected that the size of the domestic retail and discount market would reach 565 billion yuan by 2010, and would expand tenfold to 5681 billion yuan by 2015.

Based on a 3% market share at the time of its listing, by 2010, Orange Products' sales revenue alone reached 17 billion yuan; six months later, Orange Products' financial statements looked better and better.

The growth rates for the first three quarters of this year were 36.8%, 56.2%, and 60.6% respectively, which is a very encouraging growth trend. At this rate, Orange Products should be able to achieve a market share of around 5% by the end of 2010.

“Intense competition is a good thing. If we can revitalize the Double Eleven market and make the pie bigger, we can get a bigger slice. There’s no need to worry.”

The real era of online shopping hasn't arrived yet; it will only happen after smartphones become widely available. Speaking of which, this year has been a year of explosive growth for counterfeit phones.

Since 2006, counterfeit mobile phones have gradually become popular. This year, the expected shipment volume has reached 1 million units, not including those exported overseas. The actual shipment volume must exceed 1 million units.

The mobile phones of the group's workshop employees are all kinds of things, including those with super loud speakers, big loudspeakers, scrolling lights, and four SIM cards with four standby functions. Especially at Dexian Electronics, which is not far from Huaqiangbei, the variety is dazzling.

This year, Dexian Electronics has been kept alive by the counterfeit mobile phone market, and it will likely continue to do so for several more years.

"Should we get into the mobile phone business? The mobile phone business is booming right now, and those knock-off phones aren't expensive. I've looked into it, and the profit margins are decent. Should we also start a mobile phone division?"

Now that the company has gone public, Gu Qingqing is worried about performance pressure and has been trying to develop some new businesses over the past year.

"No need. Those knock-off phones are too low-quality. Besides, our main business is in shoes and clothing. Also, after-sales service for mobile phones is troublesome. The quality of knock-off phones is unstable, and we simply can't provide after-sales service."

If we're just talking about after-sales service, the apparel industry is relatively easy to work with. It's basically just about returns and exchanges, and if you do it well, you can gain a lot of goodwill.

The mobile phone industry is different. If Orange Products wants to establish its own brand, it cannot make counterfeit mobile phones.

A few hundred yuan's worth of goods can be used for several years if you make do, but with all sorts of minor and major problems, it's incredibly annoying. Another very important reason is that counterfeit phones support countless mobile phone stores, representing millions of families. If this is widely used for online shopping, premature capital intervention might not actually be a good thing.

Ordinary people need to be given some opportunities to get rich. Killing off Huaqiangbei too early is not a good thing for Dexian Electronics at this stage.

"Don't worry about that. You're about to step down anyway. Let Mr. Sun worry about the performance. As for the future of Orange Technology, the two of us can only help so much. We've pretty much completed our mission."

If a bigwig known as the father of Taobao needs Tan Jincheng to give pointers when running a small e-commerce website, then the money is being wasted.

Aside from the quirky ideas on Pinduoduo and the gaming business, Tan Jincheng can't really offer much help in the future direction of Orange Technology. As for products like intelligent car assistance and vehicle networking, that's still a long way off.

"Go back and rest, it's getting a bit chilly at night; by the way, a few sports cars will be arriving in the next few days, do you want to get one and drive it around to help me promote it?"

Gu Qingqing's car is still the same BMW from before, and it's registered under Orange Technology's name. It's quite absurd that she doesn't even own a car herself.

Gu Qingqing's personal assets were truly clean. Apart from cash, she only had the house near Ningbo University and the large apartment in Liren Garden. She had nothing else.

Tan Jincheng had accumulated quite a bit of wealth, including the 100 houses he bought back then, the villa, the two smaller houses, stocks, and other fixed investments.

As for the cars, he doesn't own any; they're all registered under the company's name.

"Sure, I've got my eye on that red S7. Do you want to keep one for yourself?"

"Of course I'll keep one for myself, and give another one to Lao Zhang. Do you have anyone you want to give one to? How about giving one to your father-in-law?"

Gu Qingqing chuckled: "Forget it, it's not suitable for him to drive a sports car at his age. If you want to give him a car, let's wait until Weilai Auto releases its new model and give him one. He doesn't need a car right now."

Gu Qingqing had seen the renderings of Yuechi's first SUV, and she thought they were quite stunning. It was truly rare for a domestically produced SUV priced under 20 yuan to have such a design sense.

"Why can't they drive it? Haha, but I guess they wouldn't want to drive it even if I gave it to them. How about this, I'll get my father-in-law a pickup truck. He can use it to haul goods for his farm stay."

"What about your dad? Doesn't he want to get one?"

Tan Jincheng shook his head: "He doesn't need it. He quite likes his Passat and even drove it over specially."

The Passat was the first car that Tan Jincheng bought for Lao Tan, who had been driving it for several years and cherished it. After retiring early this time, he brought over the Passat with the Anhui license plate (皖H).

Tan Jincheng had mentioned buying him another car before, but Old Tan had refused each time. Since that's the case, let's just leave it at that. The older generation has different spending habits, so we should respect them.

When it comes to sales volume during Double Eleven, Orange Shopping Club definitely can't compete with Taobao and JD.com. Orange Shopping Club doesn't intend to compete with these top players in this regard. As for another e-commerce website, Vancl, it's not comparable to Orange Shopping Club because their business models are different.

This year is not only the year that Orange Technology became a sensation, but also the year that Vancl became a legend. Founded last year, they have come up with creative marketing strategies this year, with their advertisements being ubiquitous.

They completed three rounds of financing within a year, with Lei Jun investing $1 million. This guy is really incredibly good to Mr. Chen.

Vancl, with its astonishing growth rate, achieved its first takeoff within a year, showing a strong intention to compete with Orange Technology. At this time, the "Vancl Style" had not yet emerged, and Mr. Chen publicly compared it with the newly listed Orange Technology more than once.

He criticized Orange Products' business model many times, but Tan Jincheng ordered the company's senior management to ignore him, and neither he nor Gu Qingqing ever responded.

Using competitors to extort money—Tan Jincheng is very adept at this tactic.

The more he talks, the more mistakes he makes. This guy's reputation on the internet isn't great either. Besides, Tan Jincheng doesn't think highly of his business model. The direct sales model would put too much pressure on them due to inventory.

Physical entities are not physical entities, and the internet is not the internet. If you're going to do physical business, do it properly. If you're going to do internet business, don't get involved in heavy assets.

"By the way, you need to attend a meeting at Orange Technology tomorrow. When you're doing marketing, try not to mention Flash Group. Mentioning my name is fine, but we need to keep a low profile lately."

Changfeng Group is about to resume trading, and Tan Jincheng doesn't want to cause any trouble, so he has asked the entire group to avoid giving media interviews as much as possible.

Even if you have to give an interview, try to avoid mentioning specific business data of the company.

(End of this chapter)