northernbook Chapter 70 Orders
Chapter 70 Orders
2018 October.
The F4's sales in its first week on the market surprised everyone.
Three thousand two hundred units were sold in seven days.
This figure is 40 percent higher than that of the F3 at the same time. And the price of the F4 is 1,300 yuan more expensive than that of the F3.
Meng Xiaoyi wrote in her weekly report: "Distributor feedback is consistent—the F4's automatic flight path function is its biggest selling point. Many small business owners in county towns say: 'Before, we had to hire an operator, but now we don't. The machine flies by itself. Just the saved labor costs alone have made back the extra money spent in two months.'"
After reading this passage, Su Chen drew a line next to it.
"I'll earn it back in two months."
This was the logic behind his initial pricing of 3499. It wasn't about how much more expensive it was than the F3—it was about how much it saved customers.
At the same time, the SDK Open Ecosystem Alliance is also accelerating.
After the F4 was launched, alliance members discovered an unexpected benefit—the F4's obstacle avoidance and flight path data could be transmitted back to Hongyuan's flight control platform via the cloud. This data was also valuable for optimizing their own products.
As a result, a "data sharing pool" was spontaneously formed within the alliance. Each member contributes flight data for their own scenario, and all members can benefit from the pool.
This wasn't designed by Su Chen. It grew naturally within the ecosystem.
By the end of October, the SDK Alliance had accumulated 10 clients.
Su Chen looked at the number. The initial target was thirty companies. In just ten months, they had exceeded the target by thirty-seven percent.
In early November, news of F4 began to spread outside the industry.
The incident began when a wedding photographer from a small county posted a video on a short video platform. In the video, he used an F4 drone to film a rural wedding. The F4 flew smoothly along its automatically planned flight path, producing stable and fluid footage. He said in the video, "Before, hiring a drone pilot cost 300 yuan a day. Now, with the F4, I can fly it myself. The machine is more stable than a person."
This video has received over 200,000 views.
Then there's a fruit orchard owner from Sichuan. He used F4 to patrol his citrus orchard, demonstrating how the auto-navigation function saves him two hours of patrol time each day. (500,000 views)
Next, there's an aquaculture farmer from Guangdong. He used an F4 monitor to check the surface conditions of his fishpond. (Views: 800,000)
None of this was arranged by Su Chen. This was spread spontaneously by users.
Because the F4 solves a real problem—it allows you to do things without a professional operator.
When a product truly solves a problem, users will spread the word. No Google is needed. No marketing is required.
In its first month on the market, the F4 achieved cumulative sales of over 5,000 units.
The number of units sold exceeded 8,000 in the second month.
By the end of December, the F4's cumulative sales reached 12 units.
With the F3 still in stock, Hongyuan's total sales of consumer drones exceeded 50,000 units in 2018.
Fifty thousand units.
This number is already the absolute number one in the niche market of drones used for work in county towns.
Meanwhile, the Tianying S1—the low-priced model priced at 999 yuan—only sold a little over 7,000 units during the same period. Moreover, the return rate was as high as 8%. This was because the flight controller was of very poor quality; many customers found it unusable after only a few uses.
Tianying's self-developed flight control team has been established for a year. It's said they've already created the first prototype. However, mass production is still at least a year away.
But Hongyuan will not remain where it is today a year from now.