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Chapter 589 0577 [Apple's health bar has been revealed]

The video of Chen Guiliang's new product launch spread rapidly, accompanied by a massive amount of advertising spending.

The publicity campaign this time is unprecedented because Ye Peng believes the time is right.

First, the sales channels for HarmonyOS phones are now fully established, with official flagship stores and authorized dealer stores already in operation, even reaching remote small counties.

Secondly, the number of HarmonyOS mobile phone models on sale has increased to 13, covering various price ranges from 1000 yuan to 5000 yuan.

In this situation, investing heavily in advertising can achieve the best results and boost sales of all HarmonyOS products.

The exorbitant advertising costs resulted in HarmonyOS phones being the talk of the town both online and offline.

Even newspapers, websites, and influential figures who had a bad relationship with Chen Guiliang took the money and helped promote his work.

There were even comical situations where a prominent influencer went crazy praising HarmonyOS, yet the post was labeled "from iPhone 5".

Some even compared the press conference styles of Chen Guiliang, Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, and Lei Jun.

Steve Jobs was an "evangelist" and "chief storyteller," and his product launches resembled classic three-act plays full of tension. He was adept at portraying traditional mobile phones as the main villains, creating a reality-distorting field, and conveying a disruptive passion for changing the world and an unquestionable confidence.

Cook, on the other hand, is more like a "Spring Festival Gala host," steady and organized, leaving the program (product demonstration) to professional executives to perform.

Although Xiaomi's total smartphone sales are not high, Lei Jun's product launches often generate a lot of buzz. Lei Jun's style is very similar to Steve Jobs', but their approaches are quite different. Ultimately, both companies end by comparing themselves to Apple and HarmonyOS, making a loud and catchy slogan.

What's Chen Guiliang's style of press conferences like? It's like an old friend drinking and bragging!
Sometimes he tells stories, sometimes he doesn't. He often skips the emotional build-up and jumps straight to the main point, like an old friend who just met and says, "Wow, I just did something awesome."

This unpretentious speaking style is very similar to later online videos, where the highlights are presented at the beginning, immediately grabbing the audience's attention.

The reputation and credibility that Chen Guiliang and HarmonyOS have built up over the years, along with Chen Guiliang's status as China's richest man, the huge amount of money he has spent on advertising, and the various novel selling points of the new HarmonyOS phone, have all contributed to creating a public opinion that "HarmonyOS phones are leading the world."

Even middle-aged and elderly people who don't use the internet somehow got the news that HarmonyOS phones are incredibly awesome.

What are the consequences of this?
HarmonyOS Yaoguang Pro sold over 80 units in its first week (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday).

80 units sold in three days!
In another week, the Apple 5S will also go on sale, selling 900 million units in its first three days. HarmonyOS seems to be far behind, but the Apple 5S is sold in 20 countries around the world.

Moreover, within these three days, not only did the newly launched HarmonyOS Yaoguang Pro sell out quickly, but other models from HarmonyOS also saw a surge in sales.

The HarmonyOS Yaoguang Pro in China Red and Rose Gold sold out on the second day of its release, with scalpers selling it for over 8000 yuan a unit.

Ye Peng then launched a second wave of publicity, which even made it onto CCTV's "News Broadcast".

News Union did not specifically promote HarmonyOS, but instead reported on the explosive growth of domestic brands in a brief news report, while also highlighting the amazing first-week sales of Yaoguang Pro.

Ye Peng also gifted mobile phones to some celebrities, asking them to post on Weibo to demonstrate the Yaoguang Pro's pedometer and distance calculation functions, thus linking the Yaoguang Pro with sports and health.

In early October, data on the domestic mobile phone market for the third quarter of this year was released.

In the third quarter, total mobile phone sales in the domestic market reached 1.03 million units (excluding counterfeit and grey market goods), of which smartphones accounted for 0.93 million units. Smartphones held an astonishing market share of 90.3%!

In the second quarter, smartphones accounted for less than 80%.

The data for HarmonyOS phones has also been released: sales of 1326 million units in the third quarter, with market shares of 12.87% (total mobile phone market) and 14.26% (smartphone market).

In a single quarter, sales jumped from third to first!

Apple and Samsung's flagship phones were launched in China very quickly this year, as they have experience in this area and apply for network access several months in advance.

It's already early July.

HarmonyOS Yaoguang Pro, which has been on the market for more than half a month, is going head-to-head with Apple 5S/5C and Samsung Galaxy Note 3, which have just entered the Chinese market!

The hardware issues with the Apple 5S/5C have been resolved; only a few batches had defects at the time of initial release.

However, Apple's system bugs have not been completely fixed.

The first batch of iPhone 5S/5C phones to enter the Chinese market, running iOS 7.0.2, only fixed some critical issues. However, the system still occasionally lagged or dropped frames, scrolling was unresponsive, apps were difficult to integrate and prone to crashing, battery consumption was abnormal, signal strength was unstable, and it was possible to bypass the lock screen password to directly access contacts and photos…

Bypassing the lock screen password, a major security vulnerability, is actually more acceptable to ordinary users.

The real problem is the compatibility of third-party applications. Almost all Chinese apps have not been adapted for the newly released iOS 7. Furthermore, a large amount of code in iOS 7 has been rewritten, causing even QQ to crash.

How could Chen Guiliang and Ye Peng not seize the opportunity?
Numerous influential figures and paid online trolls have been taking money to focus their attacks on iOS 7's compatibility issues. They don't even bother with fabricated smear campaigns; they simply post various "screenshots" complaining about app crashes.

In the past, Apple fans would fight back, but this time even Apple fans have been angered by Apple.

Many long-time iPhone 4/4s/5 users, unaware of the iOS 7 bug, upgraded without realizing it and became infected. Furthermore, they were unable to revert to the previous version, leaving them utterly frustrated by iOS 7. (While it is possible to revert on the iPhone 4/4s, the process is quite complex.)
The influential figures and online trolls hired by HarmonyOS were seen as kindred spirits by Apple fans. A large number of Apple fans actively joined the movement, complaining online about how terrible iOS 7 was.

Amidst a deluge of complaints, sales of the Apple 5S and 5C in China grew slowly. Some Apple fans who had saved up for a new phone even opted for HarmonyOS-based smartphones. Finally, at the end of October, Apple released iOS 7.0.3, fixing the lock screen vulnerability and lag issues (though the upgraded iPhone 4 and 4S still experienced lag).

However, app compatibility remains an issue, requiring third-party app developers to adapt the app.

Major manufacturers have discovered that this is also related to Apple's latest 64-bit architecture. Large games and banking apps, in particular, will find it difficult to adapt to the iPhone 5S and 5C in the short term.

Issues such as live wallpapers failing to display, unstable Bluetooth connections, and poor FaceTime audio call quality were simply ignored. These were minor problems, not worth mentioning.

Without HarmonyOS phones competing directly, users could barely tolerate the shortcomings of the Apple 5S/5C, given its outstanding advantages. They could simply wait until the problems were completely resolved before buying another one.

But with HarmonyOS Yaoguang Pro on the market, many Apple users can't resist.

This also led to a decline in sales of the iPhone 4/4s/5, because all the older iPhone models produced in the last six months came pre-installed with iOS 7...

Throughout the fourth quarter, sales of all Apple models in China plummeted!

If it were just an iOS 7 issue, sales could be recovered once it's fully resolved. However, this incident, fueled by HarmonyOS's involvement, has severely damaged Apple's brand image.

The golden statue has been broken.

As anyone who plays games often knows, bosses don't have their health bars displayed.

Apple, the big boss, has truly shown its true colors this time due to its own problems and the attacks from other brands.

It's not just HarmonyOS that's attacking Apple; all brands are ganging up on it. For example, Samsung's distributors have their staff use a standardized script to relentlessly criticize Apple in front of consumers.

Finally, some online arguments even emerged: "Apple has been declining since Jobs passed away. All of Apple's innovations in recent years are based on the foundation laid by Jobs when he was alive. Now Jobs' legacy has been exhausted, and Apple will eventually fail. Cook is a piece of trash!"

The die-hard Apple fans, still defending Apple, are simultaneously arguing with users of other brands and viciously cursing Cook. They believe Cook has ruined Apple and are even calling on the Apple board to replace him as CEO.

Now let's talk about Samsung.

Samsung, which released the Galaxy Note 3 in October, knew it couldn't compete with HarmonyOS and Apple's flagship phones (their features and performance were far inferior), so it proactively lowered the launch price to 3999 yuan.

This pricing strategy stabilized sales.

Moreover, Samsung continues its strategy of flooding the lower-tier market with a wide range of models while constantly increasing its mid-range offerings. Sales rebounded in the fourth quarter, with market share extremely close to that of HarmonyOS, both hovering around 14%.

Apple's market share in the fourth quarter had fallen to eighth place.

This shows that Apple is still quite resilient; despite causing such a major problem, its market share ranking only dropped one place in a single quarter. It was overtaken by Vivo...

HarmonyOS stock price surges!

ByteDance's stock price is also rising.

Chen Guiliang remains at the top of both the Hurun Rich List and the Forbes list this year.

Second is Lao Wang, because of the real estate boom.

However, there is still a significant discrepancy between the Hurun Report and Forbes' asset statistics for Mr. Wang. One lists his assets at 1350 billion yuan, while the other lists them at 860 billion yuan.

Perhaps because his own father didn't become the richest man in China, Principal Wang has to increase his publicity efforts.

Amid the fierce battle between HarmonyOS and Apple, Principal Wang suddenly posted a Weibo message: "Just got the Yaoguang Pro, rose gold color."

This person, who used to always use Apple products, has switched brands this year.

Chen Guiliang returned the compliment, commenting, "Very beautiful. Best wishes to IG for winning the Oracle Era S2 championship!"

The game "Oracle Era" held its S1 tournament last year, but it didn't have a very large impact. This year's S2 tournament is much larger, with teams from North America, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Australia joining.

Principal Wang actually chatted with Chen Guiliang on Weibo: "Will President Chen of S2 be present in person?"

Chen Guiliang said, "Go ahead."

Principal Wang said, "I also plan to go and cheer for IG."

Both of their Weibo posts included a small caption: "From HarmonyOS Yaoguang Pro".

The number of wealthy individuals and celebrities using HarmonyOS flagship phones has increased significantly in the past two or three months, largely due to the bugs in iOS 7.

IDC's "Asia Pacific Mobile Market Quarterly Tracker" released in January stated:
"China's mobile phone shipments in the fourth quarter of 2013 decreased by 4.3% compared to the third quarter... The Asia-Pacific market (excluding Japan) appears to be approaching saturation, and growth in the Chinese market will gradually slow down..."

"HarmonyOS phones have regained the top market share in China, while Apple's market share has declined significantly... Competition in the Chinese mobile phone market is becoming increasingly fierce, with the low-end market becoming extremely competitive... No brand still holds a market share exceeding 15%..."

This is the year HarmonyOS phones will explode onto the scene!
(End of this chapter)