Pei Qian let out a gentle sigh.

There was no choice—between making more money and fighting scalpers, he would unhesitatingly choose the latter.

Besides, the profit margin on the gaming router wasn’t particularly high, so selling more wouldn’t matter much. He just needed to find ways to offset the profits elsewhere.

The gaming console’s failure to lose money left Pei Qian feeling very discouraged.

What happened to console gaming being difficult? What happened to being able to count the number of companies worldwide that understood the console business on one hand?

Could Tenda actually be one of those companies on that one hand?

Pei Qian found this completely unacceptable.

But at this point, worrying was useless. Tenda’s gaming industry had already expanded from development to distribution channels, from AAA titles to indie games, and from software to hardware.

There was truly nowhere else to go from here.

“Sigh, hopefully the phone sales will give me some consolation.”

“Although this foldable phone completely uses Shenhua’s design, Tenda did invest money in it. If sales are poor, we could still lose a small amount.”

“It might not be as much of a loss as the gaming console, but at least it would be some psychological comfort.”

Pei Qian opened a webpage to check—Shenhua Group’s foldable phone would officially go on sale in just a few minutes.

Tenda Group’s phone release had been deliberately delayed by one hour.

The reason was simple: they couldn’t compete with Shenhua Group for the first-release advantage!

If Tenda released earlier, there would definitely be some unfortunate souls who would buy it without understanding the situation, wasting their money, which wouldn’t be good.

After Shenhua Group’s phones absorbed the first wave of demand, Tenda’s phone sales would naturally decrease significantly.

Besides, since Tenda’s foldable phone used Shenhua Group’s ready-made solution, competing for first release wouldn’t seem very honorable. From both emotional and rational perspectives, Pei Qian’s approach was perfectly reasonable.

Pei Qian first focused on the sales situation of Shenhua Group’s foldable phone.

The moment the purchase button lit up, Pei Qian silently began timing.

The ideal scenario would be for them to have sufficient stock all the way until Tenda’s phone went on sale, with Shenhua Group not selling out. This way, apart from a small number of die-hard fans, no one would come to Tenda Group to purchase the same phone.

But just after a brief moment of distraction, Pei Qian saw that the purchase page on the official website had turned gray, indicating “sold out.”

“Huh?”

“It’s… already sold out?”

“It’s been less than 5 minutes!”

Pei Qian was shocked. He quickly checked other channels, like major online shopping websites, only to find that they were all uniformly sold out.

Only on certain platforms did the buttons light up briefly, perhaps because some users who had locked in orders didn’t complete payment in time, causing some leftover stock to become available again. But these quickly returned to the “sold out” status, clearly indicating that many users were waiting to snatch up any leftovers.

Looking at online comments:

“Wow, how did Shenhua Group’s phones sell out so quickly? This is a phone with a starting price of 18,000 yuan!”

“This is insane! There are just too many rich people!”

“This foldable screen technology is indeed impressive, truly unique worldwide. And Shenhua Group’s accumulated technology in phones is really powerful, with many loyal fans who have strong purchasing power. It’s not surprising they sold out.”

“Damn it! Who knows how many were snatched by scalpers using scripts? I knew these scalpers wouldn’t let anything that could be hyped slip by. If their own mothers could be hyped, these people would do it without hesitation!”

“Yeah, scalpers are so despicable. I genuinely wanted to buy this phone but couldn’t get one at all.”

“I checked second-hand websites, and people are already listing them with a 3,000 yuan markup! Damn, that’s really black-hearted!”

“Hey, doesn’t Outou Technology have another batch of stock?”

“Outou Technology is also releasing a foldable phone? That seems unlikely. Only Shenhua Group’s foldable technology is mature; other manufacturers’ foldable screens have poor effects.”

“Outou Technology’s model is the same one. They said at the press conference it’s completely identical, just with a prettier phone case added.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s grab one quickly. Getting one is pure profit.”

“It probably just benefits the scalpers again. If we know to rush to Outou Technology, the scalpers definitely know too!”

“Scalpers? You don’t know about Tenda Group’s rich experience in battling scalpers. Outou Technology’s phones aren’t so easily snatched; there are a series of conditions. Anyway, let’s try to grab one. Though they might not have much stock, it’ll definitely be much fairer than here.”

Reading these comments, a chill ran down Pei Qian’s spine.

Something wasn’t right. The situation was off.

He seemed to see countless customers waving money, swarming from Shenhua Group’s store to Tenda Group’s store, all waving wads of cash, insisting on stuffing it into his hands.

The strange thing was that at the press conference, Jiang Yuan had very honestly admitted that this foldable phone was identical to Shenhua Group’s, with absolutely no differences.

He had thought this would be a negative point, but unexpectedly it turned into a huge positive, even becoming iron-clad proof of the Outou X1 phone’s high tech content and quality.

Pei Qian cautiously opened Outou Technology’s purchase page. Sure enough, as the purchase activity began, the buy button changed to “sold out” after only three minutes.

Even faster than Shenhua Group’s side.

Of course, Shenhua Group’s stock was definitely much more than Outou Technology’s, but Outou Technology had anti-scalper mechanisms in place, so it was hard to say which was more embarrassing.

All that could be said was: brothers in misfortune, six of one, half a dozen of the other. Neither lasted 5 minutes.

While Pei Qian was feeling distressed, the phone on his desk rang.

It was Chang You calling.

Chang You’s voice was excited: “Mr. Pei, our phones and gaming consoles are all selling like crazy!”

“I’ve already urged them to ramp up production of the consoles as quickly as possible. As for the phones, it’s hard to say; it depends on Shenhua Group’s intentions.”

“However, I’ve communicated with Director Lin, and his view is that Shenhua Group should learn from Tenda Group’s model, controlling the purchase mechanism to prevent scalper interference as much as possible.”

“Besides that, we’re also maximizing production capacity for the phones. This product will definitely be a hot seller for at least half a year!”

“In addition, Mr. Pei, there’s more good news!”

Pei Qian was startled—the previous news was already bad enough; how could there be more good news?

Chang You excitedly said: “Our first batch of custom phone cases has also completely sold out!”

“I didn’t have high hopes before, so I just sent some sample phones and cases to digital reviewers on video platforms for evaluation. Unexpectedly, they all praised our phone cases endlessly!”

“Especially those content creators who enjoy mobile gaming—they all felt our phone cases were designed with many scenarios in mind and had high recognizability when held, so they strongly recommended them to their fans.”

“Many who bought the foldable phone from Shenhua Group also bought our phone cases to use together.”

“After all, Shenhua Group’s foldable phone isn’t very recognizable when simply held in hand, but with the phone case, its recognizability immediately increases.”

“Mr. Pei, your strategy was completely correct. For such high-end digital products, technology is fundamentally about changing cases—appearance is the biggest advantage!”

Pei Qian fell silent.

He realized his strategy had a major problem!

First, he had overestimated Shenhua Group’s phone production and underestimated consumer demand. Shenhua Group’s phones sold out in less than 5 minutes, indicating that market demand clearly wasn’t satisfied. Many people would gladly pay an extra one or two thousand yuan to buy from scalpers, so what did Outou Technology’s slight premium matter?

The phone case situation was even more frustrating. Would someone willing to spend 20,000 yuan on a phone care about spending an additional 500 yuan on a phone case?

If the phone case was an “intelligence tax,” wealthy people aren’t stupid and wouldn’t buy it. But what if the phone case was genuinely worth the money?

For many people, buying cutting-edge digital products either means they’re truly enthusiastic tech lovers who must experience new technology immediately, or they want to show off.

This point is reasonable—after all, there are many ways to show off, from designer clothes and bags to mechanical watches. Although Pei Qian didn’t particularly endorse this, he had to admit that most people develop similar needs after achieving economic prosperity.

Shenhua Group’s foldable phone had a major problem: insufficient recognizability.

Of course, during the folding process, its recognizability was high, but in daily use, it was mostly used folded—one couldn’t keep it unfolded at all times.

Once folded and held in hand, it didn’t look much different from an ordinary phone.

If you added Shenhua Group’s traditional flip-cover protective case, it might look mature and steady, but the show-off factor would completely disappear.

At this point, spending 500 yuan to purchase Outou Technology’s specialized cyberpunk protective case would immediately raise the prestige level!

Whether folded or unfolded, people could recognize at a glance that this was the latest foldable phone with a phone case costing a hefty 500 yuan.

Moreover, Outou Technology’s phone case was genuinely useful.

On one hand, because it used hollow-out technology, its actual weight was lighter than the protective case included by Shenhua Group. The glass material and heat dissipation layer improved the phone’s cooling, while the integrated design provided better protection for the phone.

The two hooks and stand design met the needs for binge-watching shows and gaming.

For many people, buying such an advanced phone was certainly for watching shows and playing games. The advantage of a foldable screen was that it combined a large screen with portability. If you didn’t use this large screen for gaming and watching shows, wouldn’t that be a waste?

This phone case better met these needs, and with the highly recognizable cyberpunk custom theme, it was naturally popular among young people.

So many who bought the foldable phone from Shenhua Group didn’t mind spending an extra 500 yuan to buy a phone case from Outou Technology to use together.

Outou Technology instantly became an impressive phone case manufacturer with decent sales!

Probably many phone case manufacturers on shopping websites were wondering if Outou Technology had any shame, lowering themselves to compete in their business.

It was just ridiculous!