"Doctor, are we really going to operate according to market value?" After receiving Dr. Cooper's order, the entire securities department of Goldman Sachs found it hard to believe.
Goldman Sachs had handled many IPOs, and many had been listed within three months. However, an estimated valuation of 500 billion US dollars upon listing, and the requirement to guarantee such a valuation, was something entirely unprecedented for the entire Goldman Sachs.
"Success is mandatory, failure is not an option!" Dr. Cooper stated unequivocally. "You need to understand one thing: this IPO will earn us a 2% intermediation fee. Based on a financing scale of 40%, which is 200 billion US dollars, this is a staggering 4 billion US dollar revenue. If you fail to meet the target, this 4 billion dollars will be deducted from your department's annual bonuses, and if it's not fully deducted in one year, it will continue to be deducted from next year's until it's all paid back!"
"Of course, if you succeed, your entire department will receive a 100 million US dollar year-end bonus this year!"
"My God!" Hearing these words, the head of the securities department could only exclaim to God.
"Oh, right, I will allocate 100 billion US dollars for you to operate. Convert all this money into shares, do you understand?" Dr. Cooper added.
"100 billion US dollars, Doctor, you are this optimistic about this company?" the securities head asked.
"Of course, if I could, I would swallow this company whole!" Dr. Cooper said decisively.
This step occurred on September 3, 2007, which was also the day Tianzhou Terminals was globally synchronized for listing.
Unlike many companies that liked to pre-sell, Tianzhou Terminals announced that their devices would be sold through a flash sale model, meaning shipments would commence precisely on schedule, and customers could grab as many as they could.
However, for offline purchases, personal identification would be required, and each identity document could only be used for one purchase, with no repeat purchases allowed.
For online purchases, personal identity information would need to be pre-bound to one's account, and each bound account could only purchase one device.
In the words of Jiangnan Group, this sales model was adopted to maximally combat scalpers.
Previously, during the release of many popular products, there were large numbers of scalpers pre-ordering, with scalpers even accounting for more than half of the pre-orders, leaving users who genuinely wished to purchase the devices unable to do so.
Therefore, it was better to directly implement a flash sale model with personal identity binding. Even if scalpers had the ability to obtain enough identity information for account binding, they wouldn't have that many computers to refresh and grab simultaneously!
The actual effect of this method was unknown, but one thing was for sure: it was an instant sell-out.
For the offline platforms, it was said that people were already guarding store entrances with stools two nights before the sale, preparing to queue. Later, it was said that it got too cold at night, so they asked friends to bring tents, and then they directly set up camp outside this sales point.
Of course, this could only be considered an isolated case, reported by the media. However, when the online sale began, the situation was even more terrifying.
In the United States, Tianzhou Terminals had only one online sales channel: the official flagship store of Eastern Amazon.
As it was targeting the entire US region, the official flagship store had a stock of 300,000 units. This number was already substantial, and everyone assumed it would last for at least a day… for an hour.
However, within just five seconds of the sale starting, all 300,000 Tianzhou Terminals were sold out.
This achievement left all manufacturers breathless, as it meant that in the entire United States, a full 300,000 accounts, bound with personal identity information, had purchased Tianzhou Terminals.
These were 300,000 living individuals! Tianzhou Terminals had only been released for a few days, yet it already possessed such terrifying market appeal?
It wasn't just the United States; the situation was similar worldwide.
While Tianzhou Terminals claimed a global synchronized launch, in reality, only five countries were directly included in the initial launch: China, the United States, Japan, France, and Germany.
China's first batch had a total release of 500,000 units, exceeding the total for the US.
Japan had 50,000 units, the smallest quantity, while France had 200,000 units, and Germany also had 200,000 units.
As a result, except for Japan, which took a full six hours to sell out, most other countries' stock was snapped up within ten seconds.
Oh, and all the units sold this time were the standard versions, priced at 1999 yuan RMB. Jiangnan Group would sell the high-end configuration versions at a different time.
This also proved that Tianzhou Terminals had such terrifying influence worldwide.
Soon, the media immediately began reporting this rare news with headlines like "300,000 Units Sold in Three Seconds."
So, what were Boss Huang's thoughts?
Let's rewind the clock a bit, to the point of this global synchronized sale. Due to time differences, Europe, specifically France and Germany, were the first to start selling at 10 AM. Next was China, followed by Japan, and finally the United States.
Simultaneously, because Jiangnan Group had no large-scale chain of physical stores in countries other than the United States and China, and there were no offline sales methods in countries other than the United States and China, all sales were conducted directly online.
At 10 AM French time, as the staff eagerly counted down, the online sales channel officially opened.
After about three seconds, Boss Huang directly asked, "How many units have been sold so far?"
"Reporting, boss, 20,000 units out of 200,000 have been sold."
After waiting for about another five seconds, that is, the eighth second of the sale, Boss Huang continued to inquire, but the numbers hadn't increased much, only from 20,000 to 24,000 units, just a little over one-tenth of the total!
"Directly take down all products and announce the sell-out!" Boss Huang ordered without hesitation. Thus, in France, with 200,000 units prepared, only 24,000 units were sold before the immediate sell-out.
An hour later, it was Germany's turn. The sales situation was even worse than in France. Perhaps due to German pride, they didn't trust that Chinese products could be manufactured so excellently. Hence, after seven seconds, only slightly over 7,000 units had been sold.
However, at the ninth second, Boss Huang still announced the sell-out, and all products were taken down.
Next was China, with a total of 500,000 units. After three seconds, Boss Huang was about to inquire about the numbers when the staff excitedly reported that all 500,000 units had been sold out.
"..." Boss Huang opened his mouth, only able to say that the people of his homeland were awesome.
The situation afterward was similar. Although the United States sold out in five seconds, only 120,000 units were sold within those five seconds, still far from the total of 300,000 units.
As for Japan, the reason it became the sole exception, taking a full six hours to sell out, was due to some unexpected circumstances. Although Boss Huang already knew that the Japanese had a peculiar fondness for flip phones, and even Apple had difficulty selling well in Japan, he had deliberately reduced the sales volume for the first batch.
He never expected that within ten seconds, the sales would only be in the double digits, not even reaching 100 units sold.
At this point, it would have been somewhat awkward for Boss Huang to announce a sell-out, as the numbers were too far off and easily led to problems.
Therefore, Boss Huang simply abandoned the idea of faking the data for Japan, as the data from other countries was sufficient.
As for why the remaining units were sold after six hours, Boss Huang later checked the orders and found that the final delivery addresses for these orders were almost all to a few companies.
Upon inquiry, it was discovered that these companies were all forwarding agents in Japan, specializing in online shopping services.
Because many domestically limited products in Japan were unattainable for people abroad, and they had no friends in Japan, they would directly place orders online, write the forwarding agent's address, and once the goods were shipped to the forwarding agent, the agent would then ship them to various addresses worldwide, earning a postage fee.
This was essentially the most primitive form of proxy buying.
And of the Tianzhou units sold sequentially, 80% of the forwarding addresses were in China. In other words, the 50,000 units in Japan were almost entirely bought by Chinese people.
It turned out that many people had arrived late and found that they couldn't buy the goods on their own platforms. Since Japan was the only place worldwide with stock, they simply rushed to place orders in Japan and then found ways to use forwarding agents for shipment.
Boss Huang was unsure whether to be happy or upset about the behavior of these domestic buyers.
In summary, the legend of the global sell-out within ten seconds was entirely the result of Jiangnan Group's behind-the-scenes manipulation, or in simpler terms, a deliberate "monkey trick."
With the story in place, it was time to let others publicize it. Thus, with tens of millions of US dollars in publicity expenses disclosed, major global media outlets simultaneously began to report frantically on this legendary event. The news of hundreds of thousands of devices selling out completely within ten seconds echoed continuously in the ears of users worldwide.
While the repeated broadcasting of these news reports might not necessarily ignite the desire of listeners to purchase Tianzhou Terminals, it achieved one thing: it formed a fixed impression in the minds of all global viewers.
That is, Tianzhou Terminals were very popular, and everyone worldwide was frantically trying to grab them.
Regardless of whether these people would consider Tianzhou Terminals an excellent product because of this, they only needed to know that Tianzhou Terminals were hot and that many people were scrambling to buy them. That was enough, and that was what Jiangnan Group wanted.
The next step involved various online media. In addition to traditional online news, the recently emerging online video bloggers also began to submit and broadcast their videos.
"On Me Mobilizing the Entire Family and Still Failing to Get One!"
"How Many Accounts Does It Take to Grab a Tianzhou Terminal?"
"Brothers, I Got One, After Mobilizing All My Elementary School Classmates!"
From these titles, it could be seen that the main content of these videos was recordings of how they tried to get Tianzhou Terminals. Most of these video bloggers failed to get one, while only a small portion of lucky bloggers managed to get Tianzhou Terminals and immediately shared their powerful features in the videos!