Restart life

Chapter 446 0436 [How much money does Chen Guiliang actually have?]

At that time, due to the complexity of the assembly process, the low level of automation, and the issue of yield rate, the daily output of smartphone production lines was far less than it would be later.

For high-end and complex models, a single production line can only produce 2000 to 3000 units per day. For mid-to-low-end, standardized models, the daily output is approximately 3500 to 5000 units.

BYD Electronics has opened three production lines for HarmonyOS A1, which have been operating in two shifts (almost 24 hours a day), and the daily output has increased to about 8000 units.

The pre-orders accumulated from online stores were gradually cleared out, and there were even some left over to stock up for the Spring Festival.

Why did Wang Chuanfu dare to transfer a Motorola production line to HarmonyOS?

Motorola is gradually reducing production due to persistent losses and sluggish global sales.

This year's game industry annual conference (two sessions) was too busy with the mobile phone business for Chen Guiliang to attend in person. He appointed Qu Guohao as the CEO of GameTech to represent him.

Especially at the event held at the Great Hall of the People at the end of December, almost all the CEOs of major game companies attended. It was only half a day, all just going through the motions, and the bosses were too lazy to go anymore.

There will be another event in January, lasting several days, where the bosses will finally all show up.

The event was held in Qingdao last year, but this year it has been moved to Darian.

Both are from Shandong Province.

Chen Guiliang received a call from Tao Chenggang in Shenzhen: "Guiliang, the '2009 China Online Game Market White Paper' has been released!"

"You have this thing too?" Chen Guiliang was slightly surprised.

Tao Chenggang explained, "Previously, statistics were compiled by non-governmental organizations, but this time the Ministry of Culture released an industry white paper."

Chen Guiliang asked, "What big news?"

Tao Chenggang said, "Youke's online game market share has surpassed Shanda's, ranking first."

"Shouldn't we include overseas income as well?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Tao Chenggang said, "Well, forget it, overseas."

“That’s normal,” Chen Guiliang said calmly.

Tao Chenggang said speechlessly, "Is this all the reaction you have? You're the industry leader! Do you even know who the second and third are?"

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "Tencent and NetEase, of course."

"Damn, have you read the white paper?" Tao Chenggang asked.

"Guess."

"You can't possibly guess. Last year, Shanda was number one, but this year it's plummeted to fourth. Many people can't believe it."

"It's not hard to guess."

……

Darian, at the annual meeting.

"Haha, Mr. Chen is now number one in the industry and no longer wants to work with us," Chi Yufeng joked as he shook hands with Qu Guohao.

Qu Guohao quickly said, "President Chen has been very busy these past few days, traveling in the Pearl River Delta. He asked me to convey his apologies on his behalf."

Shi Yuzhu asked curiously, "The annual statistics for the game industry were released yesterday. Why did Youke's overseas revenue suddenly become so high? Did 'Future Era' become a hit in Europe?"

Chi Yufeng said, "I know that. In last year's European game revenue rankings, Perfect World ranked 12th. Future Era ranked 3rd, only behind Warcraft and Starcraft."

Qu Guohao said, "The Future Era has already been published in six languages ​​in Europe."

Unbeknownst to many, and without any deliberate promotion, the web game "Revenge of Sultan" has already become a hit in the UAE.

At that time, the UAE had the most advanced internet infrastructure in the entire Middle East, with internet speeds and computer penetration rates far exceeding those of its neighboring countries. Furthermore, game approval processes were relatively more lenient compared to other Middle Eastern countries.

Therefore, "Revenge of the Sultan" chose to premiere in the UAE.

The UAE has seven emirates with a total population of over 800 million.

The agency chose Maktoob Group, as game distribution is only one of their businesses. Their main business is portal websites and instant messaging.

When Youke sent people to discuss agency, the company had just been acquired by Yahoo (for $1.64 million).

It was just a browser game, so Maktoob Group didn't take it very seriously. The game only generated $30 in revenue in its first month.

Of the $30, Youke can only receive 25%.

Without much publicity, "Revenge of the Sultan" became a hit in its second month, with revenue soaring to $86 that month.

At this point, Maktoob Group finally realized what was happening and intensified its promotion of "Revenge of the Sultan".

In the third month (November), the game held an Eid al-Adha event, and the game's revenue surged to $277 million that month!
So let's keep up the good work. The fourth month (December) also has the traditional New Year. After a wave of New Year activities, coupled with Maktoob Group's publicity and promotion, the monthly revenue directly exceeded $4 million.

Currently, there are two most popular online games in the UAE: NetDragon's "Conquer Online" and Yoko Games' "Revenge of the Sultan".

(Sorry, I made a mistake before. Conquer Online is a PC game, not a browser game.)
Conquer Online is an old game from 2003. NetDragon redesigned the game by replacing the character designs with Middle Easterners dressed in traditional clothing. They also incorporated elements of Arabic history and culture, added various religious festivals and rituals, and then released the reskinned game to the Middle East through a Singaporean distributor.

Oil workers, have you ever seen anything like this?

He's having a blast slaying monsters, contributing 2000 million RMB to NetDragon every month.

Damn, if it weren't for the large number of players being drawn away by "Conquer Online", Youke's browser game "Revenge of the Sultan" would definitely have made more money.

NetDragon founder and CEO Liu Dejian approached Qu Guohao and whispered, "Don't publicize the situation in the Middle East market. NetDragon focuses on PC games, and Youke focuses on web games. We two companies will quietly make money from the oil tycoons. Don't attract other domestic game companies."

Qu Guohao smiled and said, "I understand."

Liu Dejian said, "Your CEO Chen is good in every way, except he talks too much. Before anything even starts, the whole world knows about it. At last year's annual meeting, he said he was going to enter the Middle Eastern online game market, which shocked me. Fortunately, everyone has forgotten what he said."

Qu Guohao strongly agreed with Liu Dejian's statement: "For the past six months or so, President Chen has been busy with mobile phones and Weibo, and I've been mainly in charge of Youke's affairs. I've been suppressing news about the Middle East market." "That's how it should be!"

Liu Dejian said, "Nobody's paying attention to the Middle East market right now. All the news reports from China are about wars breaking out somewhere. It's perfect for our two companies to quietly make a fortune!"

Liu Dejian and his cousin Liu Luyuan are quite impressive; 17173 was created by them and sold to Sohu for $2025 million.

Now they've quietly gone to the Middle East to make money off the oil tycoons.

Next, they planned to develop 91 Wireless (a third-party mobile application platform), which was later sold to Baidu for $19 billion.

However, Chen Guiliang has created the HarmonyOS camp, with a dedicated HarmonyOS developer community. It's likely that phone manufacturers within the HarmonyOS camp will follow Chen Guiliang's example and create app stores. It remains to be seen whether the Liu brothers' 91 Wireless can still succeed.

……

At the opening ceremony of the annual meeting, leaders from the State Administration of Press and Publication read out data from the "2009 China Online Game Market White Paper":
"The 2009 game industry report is the first one summarized and released by the Ministry of Culture, making it more authoritative and accurate than ever before..."

"Last year, the Chinese online game market reached 263 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 39.7%. Among them, domestically produced games accounted for 74.3%..."

The Chinese online gaming industry has undergone a complete transformation!

Game Technology ranks first, Tencent second, and NetEase third.

Shanda fell from first to fourth place.

This situation is caused by a variety of reasons.

With online payments becoming increasingly convenient and payment channels becoming more numerous, Shanda's payment channels, which had been raking in profits, saw a sharp decline in profits in 2009.

Among them is Youke's Youpay, which is vying for business because Youpay's revenue share is lower, a full 5 percentage points lower than Shanda's payment channel.

Many small and medium-sized companies have abandoned Shanda's payment system for their new games and opted for Youke's payment system instead.

Tencent and NetEase are also developing game payment systems, competing with Shanda for its business.

Chen Tianqiao didn't attend the annual meeting this time, probably because he felt it was a loss of face, and only the CEO of Shanda Games attended.

However, the State Administration of Press and Publication gave Shanda face and still allowed Shanda's CEO to speak first on stage.

In comparison, NetEase is like an unwanted stepchild.

Ding Sanshi has completely offended the State Press and Publication Administration!

While Chen Guiliang was working tirelessly for HarmonyOS phones, NetEase bypassed the State Administration of Press and Publication (SAPPRFT) and sought a license from the Ministry of Culture for World of Warcraft. The SAPPRFT leadership was furious and unilaterally declared the World of Warcraft license invalid.

Even now, World of Warcraft is still in closed beta.

If they say the publication number is invalid, it was issued by the Ministry of Culture. If they say it's valid, the State Administration of Press and Publication doesn't recognize it.

However, the Ministry of Culture is blocking the State Administration of Press and Publication from banning World of Warcraft.

So, NetEase reopened World of Warcraft under the guise of "closed beta testing." A game that had been online for several years is now in "closed beta testing" in China for another six months.

It wasn't until the central government intervened and the responsibilities of each department were clearly redefined that World of Warcraft was able to end its closed beta test.

Ding Sanshi's expression was extremely unpleasant at this moment.

NetEase's game market share ranks third, but they didn't let him speak on stage until Shi Yuzhu and Tao Chenggang had finished speaking.

A blatant beating.

Qu Guohao, on the other hand, was beaming with joy, saying that Youke was now number one in the industry.

Just then, Chen Guiliang was too busy to handle everything, so he chose to step down as CEO of Youke and let Qu Guohao officially take over as CEO.

……

The newly released annual white paper on the gaming industry initially only attracted attention within the industry.

However, this change was so significant that even non-gaming media outlets reported on it.

The China Economic News provided a detailed report on this.

Some local newspapers, however, focused on a different topic: "How much money does Chen Guiliang actually have?"

"Because Game Science is not a publicly listed company, it's difficult for Forbes and Hurun to accurately assess its assets. Last year, Chen Guiliang ranked in the seventies on the Forbes China Rich List, and in the eighties on the Hurun Rich List. It now appears that both lists made serious errors in their calculations..."

"Based on the statistics in the white paper, Youke's revenue last year exceeded 50 billion yuan. Excluding Dong Qianqiu's shares and the stock options issued to employees, Chen Guiliang owns more than 85% of Youke's shares. The wealth that Youke alone has provided to Chen Guiliang would place him among the top 70 on China's rich list..."

This report was posted online and quickly sparked heated discussions online.

Many netizens are discussing: How much money does Chen Guiliang actually have?

"I'm sorry, Old Master Chen, I shouldn't have called you Chen Ten Billion."

"Chen Guiliang has so much money, why doesn't he donate any? He has no sense of social responsibility at all!"

How do you know he didn't donate?

"This person is really good at marketing himself. If he donated money, wouldn't he tell everyone about it?"

"Damn it, other people's money wasn't stolen or robbed, so what's it to you whether they donate or not!"

"Unscrupulous capitalists..."

It's unclear who's stirring things up, but the public discussion has inexplicably shifted from debating Chen Guiliang's wealth to whether he donated any money.

He has always had a lot of haters; he offended too many people in the past.

(End of this chapter)