"Ladies and gentlemen, our Jiangnan Group has always been a company that values fair trade. All our prices are open and transparent, clearly marked. If anyone has an issue with our prices, you are welcome to withdraw from this procurement fair. We will not force anyone!" Minister Xu stated decisively.
"Do you think we dare not leave?" Several foreigners said angrily and prepared to leave. However, Minister Xu on stage remained expressionless and unmoved, as if he didn't care if all these people walked out.
Representatives from large corporations like Samsung and Sony, on the other hand, were all expressionless and unmoved.
What a joke! This strategy of different prices for domestic and international markets was something they had played with long before. They just didn't want to quote as directly as Jiangnan Group. Instead, they disguised it with various terms like "market coordination fees," "expansion surcharges," and "tax surcharges."
Of course, the most crucial point was that currently, only Jiangnan Group could produce and supply this product. And even at this price, it was still lower than the prices of storage chips produced by other manufacturers on the market. That was enough.
They wouldn't be foolish enough to leave and give up this opportunity to purchase. On the contrary, they wished these people who were clamoring to leave would leave quickly so they could secure the largest number of orders.
Unfortunately, everyone present was smart. Those who wanted to leave were merely putting on a show, trying to scare Huang He and see if they could trick Jiangnan Group into lowering their prices.
Now it seemed impossible, so they might as well sit down obediently and accept Jiangnan Group's prices!
Minister Xu completely ignored their wavering. He was just an emotionless machine executing the boss's orders.
Soon, the sales began. All 8 million pieces of storage chips of various specifications were snapped up. Even the last few types of storage chips with the highest capacities, priced at thousands of dollars per piece, were still bought out.
Furthermore, the reported demand reached 28 million pieces of storage chips. This meant that Jiangnan Group's production for half a year could only meet one-third of the market demand. This result shocked everyone present, and they couldn't help but swallow.
Especially the domestic representatives. For so many models of chips, the average price was around $100 per piece. For 8 million chips, that was $800 million in sales.
If they also counted the 4 million pieces for domestic sales, then Jiangnan Group's revenue for half a year would exceed $1 billion. Wouldn't that be $2 billion a year?
What did this mean?
At that time, there wasn't a single private enterprise in China outside of the real estate and energy sectors that could achieve such sales figures. Even in the United States, this would be a top-tier enterprise.
Many Chinese people were initially dissatisfied with Fortune magazine's valuation of Jiangnan Group's total market value at $8 billion, feeling it was an exaggeration.
Now it seemed that it wasn't an exaggeration at all, but a significant understatement. Based on the price-to-earnings ratio of at least 10 in the US stock market, just Jiangnan Optoelectronics achieving $2 billion in annual sales, with a profit of $1 billion, would mean Jiangnan Optoelectronics could be valued at $10 billion if listed on the US stock market.
And this $2 billion didn't represent Jiangnan Optoelectronics' entire performance. Jiangnan Optoelectronics also sold wafers externally, with current wafer sales exceeding $200 million, distributed across all global markets and even causing a buying frenzy in the United States.
This was only considering the sales already made. If they included pre-orders, the figure had already exceeded $500 million.
Oh, and Jiangnan Optoelectronics' storage chips also needed to supply Jiangnan Servers. Although the supply volume was unknown, Jiangnan Servers had achieved $500 million in sales in just a few months, with the main revenue source being storage servers. At least one-third of the cost here was used to purchase storage chips, which was certain.
So, calculated this way, Jiangnan Optoelectronics' annual turnover would be at least $3 billion.
But don't forget, this was just Jiangnan Optoelectronics, only a part of Jiangnan Group. Jiangnan Servers was also raising capital worldwide. Jiangnan's blind boxes had basically captured the Chinese market, with monthly sales fixed at over 500 million RMB.
Then there was 00 Games. While not making much, it was said to have generated several hundred million annually.
Next were 00 and Facebook. These two were definitely money-losing businesses, as they provided services entirely free to users. However, these two websites had joined the Google-led Tesla Alliance, and the Tesla Alliance was currently a US enterprise.
Therefore, to know if Jiangnan Group's website system could make money, one would have to wait for Google to release its annual report. Only through Google's self-reported annual advertising revenue could the advertising revenue of 00 and Facebook be estimated.
Finally, there was Jiangnan Mall. This was the most mysterious of all the websites. Since it was not a listed company, all data for Jiangnan Mall was completely undisclosed. Due to the nature of the internet, it was also difficult to investigate, and its specific profitability was unknown. However, according to an anonymous insider, Jiangnan Mall had already started to be profitable and had a promising future.
In summary, Jiangnan Group's current annual sales were breaking through towards the enormous figure of $6 billion. If it were listed on the US stock market, it would be a large enterprise with a market value of $30 billion.
Of course, this was calculated based on half of it, meaning a gross profit of $30 billion, which might seem exaggerated to some.
Fortune also found this figure exaggerated and believed a reasonable gross profit margin for Jiangnan Group would be around 20%, hence the figure of $8 billion.
Of course, this was based on the premise that Jiangnan Optoelectronics' storage chips were not yet being sold globally; it was just an estimated figure.
Now that Jiangnan Optoelectronics' sales volume and revenue were exposed, the $8 billion figure was far from sufficient.
"Could this Huang He become China's richest man!" Suddenly, this thought crossed the minds of many Chinese people present.
---
"Matsumoto-kun, how many orders did you secure?" Park Kang-hee said with a somewhat displeased expression after the ordering fair ended.
He had never expected Jiangnan Group to adopt such a method for so-called fair distribution. As a result, Samsung only secured 680,000 out of the 8 million chips, a figure that absolutely could not satisfy Samsung.
"Less than 800,000 pieces!" Matsumoto Ichiryu, representing Sony, also had a grim expression.
"This is not fair distribution at all. Where is the logic in that in this world?" Park Kang-hee said extremely unhappily. "Can the scale of our two companies be compared to others? To put it bluntly, out of the more than 30 companies present, the two of us combined could reach 50% of their total scale. We should have jointly secured 4 million pieces, but instead, we have to share the chips with many small companies, making their allocated amounts similar to ours. Is this reasonable?"
"What could I do? This minister from Jiangnan was completely unyielding today!" Matsumoto Ichiryu sighed. "However, there is still some hope. Jiangnan Group requires all orderers to pay a 20% deposit within 24 hours. If the deposit is not paid, their orders will be canceled."
"I think by tomorrow, at least about 10% of the orders will still be available. Then we can see if there's a way to grab these remaining orders."
"Yes! That's all we can do!" Park Kang-hee nodded, and then they parted ways, seemingly accepting their fate.
However, once Park Kang-hee got into his car, he called his secretary and asked her to contact some of the companies that had successfully placed orders that day.
"Well, I won't just accept this fate. I can buy the shares from others!"
"First of all, those Chinese people. For the same chips, their purchase price is 50% lower than ours. So if I offer a 20% premium to acquire their shares, I believe they won't refuse. It's like picking up money from the ground. This way, I might be able to secure another 2 million orders." Park Kang-hee was very impressed with his own cleverness, coming up with such a brilliant idea.
"Did this Yamamoto Ryuichi not think of these things?" Park Kang-hee suddenly felt a sense of crisis and immediately instructed his driver to head directly to the hotel where these Chinese representatives were staying.
Thus, the Chinese purchasing parties had just returned to their hotel when Park Kang-hee arrived.
Indeed, with a direct 20% price increase, many Chinese companies were tempted by greed and willing to sell their allocated shares to Park Kang-hee. As for whether there would be issues with reselling being discovered, Park Kang-hee wasn't worried at all, because Samsung intended to take these chips back for remanufacturing, and Jiangnan would never discover the problem.
However, Park Kang-hee's good luck ended there, because the subsequent Chinese companies refused to sell. Even two companies that had already agreed changed their minds, demanding that Park Kang-hee purchase them at foreign market prices.
The reason was simple: other short-supply foreign companies had also thought of this good idea. Therefore, Park Kang-hee and other foreign companies began to do everything they could to compete for the shares held by these Chinese enterprises.
So what was Matsumoto Ryuichi doing at this time?
He was doing nothing. Instead, he returned directly to Jiangnan Group, back to the deserted auditorium, and found Minister Xu, who was directing the cleanup of the venue.
"Mr. Matsumoto, there's no use coming to me alone. All the allocations have been recorded, and the shipping is handled by other colleagues. I have no authority to interfere in these matters!" Minister Xu said decisively.
"Mr. Xu misunderstood me. I don't want to get more shares. I just want to ask if our Sony Group can also join the China Electronic Technology Industry Development Alliance that your company has established?"
"..." Minister Xu was stunned. "Good heavens, he's really broadened his horizons."