"What in the world is going on?" Tina buzzed on the other end of the phone.
She had dealt with Zhang Quantan not just once or twice. To put it a bit dramatically, their Cashew Company was nearly the bread and butter for Futukang—if they lost their orders, let alone affording their employees, the company would essentially collapse.
Although she was just Cook's assistant, even a eunuch beside the Emperor could wreak havoc on a country, so being the assistant to the CEO of Cashew was not something anyone could do. Her background and abilities were outstanding, hence Tina could almost represent Cook outside.
Thus, Zhang Quantan was also very cautious and even somewhat submissive with her, this assistant. If he offended this young lady, perhaps a single word from her could immediately make Cashew switch to another contract manufacturer.
What on Earth was lacking? Just not enough contract manufacturers?
But today, Zhang Quantan's attitude had clearly exceeded her expectations; he spoke to her with an attitude indicating he no longer cared.
"Has Zhang Quantan lost his mind?" Tina said, gritting her teeth.
"What's the matter? Why do you look so upset? Has something gone wrong?" Cook suddenly felt uneasy.
"Boss, something's gone wrong at Futukang," Tina reported truthfully, "Zhang Quantan, I don't know what got into him, has given their entire workforce a month off! Currently, all product progress is only at 50%."
"A month? Our products are launching in a month, can we wait till then?" Cook burst out furiously, "How have you been monitoring the progress?"
"Boss, I had no idea this would happen; just two days ago, I had a video call with the person in charge at Futukang. Their employees were practically working in three shifts, fully committed to production, and they even assured me that they could definitely deliver on time."
"If there really has been a problem, it must have been in these last two days..." Tina fell into thought.
"You mean, someone has been sabotaging Futukang in these two days?"
"Yes," Tina said, "The people at Futukang have always followed our pace closely, and without any special reason, they would not terminate our cooperation. Now to take this attitude, they either have found new long-term orders, as we indeed press them hard on profits, and he has been dissatisfied with us for some time."
"If that's not the reason, then it must be someone else's instigation," Tina analyzed, "Huawei's phones? They also recently completed their new product release yesterday, and their product does not have much competitive advantage over ours, could they be trying to hit us through the supply chain this way?"
"It should not be Huawei," Cook said, "They have their own factories, first of all, it's not possible for them to give orders to Futukang, and if they were to attack us this way, the cost would simply be too high."
Cook was a shrewd businessman, "Futukang's one million employees, if all were put on leave, the net cost for this month would be over ten billion Huaxia currency, plus the penalty they have to pay us, such costs, Huawei can't afford!"
"First, ask the other companies—besides us, Futukang currently has less than 50% of orders fulfilled; other contract factories can't have issues too, if we fail to deliver on time, just compensating clients will cost us an astronomical sum, and it could severely impact our company's reputation as well."
Tina immediately dialed the other contract factories' CEO's again.
But her expression gradually darkened, and towards the end, she even felt somewhat limp and powerless.
"Boss... all the other factories have shut down too," Tina said, "Their reasons are exactly the same, giving all their workers a vacation, and now almost all contract factories are empty except for a few maintenance engineers and cleaners."
"What on earth is going on?" With only one month left until delivery, even if they substitute factories now, finding a company with the capability to process the order would take several days. Furthermore, all their assembly materials are piled up in the warehouses of the current companies; there is simply no way to transfer them, not to mention the complex and tedious steps of signing contracts. It's inconceivable that production could start within a month!"
"Tell them, if they don't send back the workers immediately, don't expect to get any more orders from our Cashew Company in the future," Cook roared angrily.
"Boss, I've already told them, but they said this small change wouldn't make a difference. They've already secured a batch of new orders, and will start production as soon as the employees return from their holidays. Whether or not they have our orders doesn't matter much to them."
"What? That's ridiculous! What other company can supply such a large volume of orders? The whole world is using our products; only we have such strong sales capabilities!"
"They said that they've received a batch of orders to manufacture VR equipment, and the profit they get from processing one piece is almost double what they get from us!"
"VR equipment?" In that moment, Cook realized, "I know who's behind this!"
If anyone's VR equipment is the talk of the globe right now, it is naturally Zhang Menglong's, with a unit cost of 200 US Dollars, yet vastly superior to VR equipment costing thousands.
Their Cashew Company makes hardware devices, and they've also managed to obtain a sample of this particular VR device through some channels. The performance of the device greatly exceeded their expectations; it's hard to believe that a device costing 200 US Dollars could achieve such performance.
Even if their Cashew Company invested a higher cost, they couldn't achieve this!
Not long ago, he had just rejected requests from Ma Hua and Ding Sanshi. He also knew that this particular game had financial backing from Zhang Menglong, so clearly, this was definitely Zhang Menglong's doing, and no one else could pull off something !
In conflict with Cashew, wealthy, and capricious—could there be a second person in the world?
"The workers from these companies together number at least five million. Taking a one-month holiday, that's a cost of 50 billion Huaxia currency. Add on the compensation we are due for breach of contract... Did his money come from a windfall?"
"Boss, don't forget, in order to disrupt our labor market in America, he spent several hundred billion US Dollars to fund foundations that subsidize workers. A few hundred billion in Huaxia currency is pocket change for him."
"And what about his orders? Each company's order spans from at least 40 million devices, and many as hundreds of millions. Does he really think he can sell so many devices?"
Cook found this utterly ridiculous. Their Cashew products are used worldwide, and he wouldn't dare claim they could sell so many devices in a year.
Considering the "Operation Thunder Strike" hasn't yet launched internationally, based on the current domestic scale, the order volume would only be tens of millions devices, at most. Even stretching it, a hundred million in sales is the upper limit, right?
What about the remaining devices? Piling them up in the warehouse? That's purely losing money!
"Boss, I think we need to view this Huaxia person from a different angle," Tina said, "A device costing 200 a piece, even if he doesn't profit a penny and gives them away, what could the cost be? A hundred million units is just 20 billion, a billion units only 200 billion. Even if he spends 200 billion a year to support these subcontracting companies, what's it to him?"
"Is he insane!?" Upon hearing Tina's analysis, he even felt that this was something Zhang Menglong could indeed do. Reminiscent of the chip crisis, wasn't Zhang Menglong funding the entire Silicon Moonlight then? Not only refraining from layoffs and salary cuts but also increasing their salaries—he literally had more money than he knew what to do with!
"My dear boss, Zhang Menglong might indeed be insane," Tina said with a helpless smile, "His illness is one of wealth. If he gets upset, he smashes money on you until you can't retaliate. It's incurable!"