How Apple-bashing CEO of China’s Smartisan sells product launch tickets, smartphones

Depending on who you ask, Luo Yonghao, the founder of Chinese smartphone brand Smartisan, is either a marketing genius or an overhyped self-promoter. Either way, he has achieved something that even Steve Jobs has not: getting consumers to pay to hear his sales pitch.

Smartisan has set itself apart in the smartphone industry by transforming its annual product launches into variety shows, where people buy tickets to hear Luo’s repartee and revue.

Ticket sales generated by the company’s latest gala event, held at the 80,000-seat National Stadium in Beijing, reached 4.8 million yuan (US$751,000). The audience of 37,000 that showed up on May 15 paid for tickets that cost between 100 yuan and 1,000 yuan, according to Smartisan.

Similar to a major concert or soccer match, there were scalpers outside the National Stadium, also known as the Bird’s Nest, still hawking tickets to the Smartisan event 20 minutes before the show started.

The turnout at the Smartisan event, which was also live-streamed online, showed the continued popularity of Luo, the company’s chief executive and an internet celebrity in China with nearly 15 million followers on microblog site Sina Weibo. He founded Smartisan in 2012 with 8 million yuan as initial capital.

Luo, 47, said at the show that he invited representatives from the Guinness World Records to certify if the event was the biggest smartphone launch ever.

“I don’t know whether we have a record, but telling from the packed audience, I think we did it,” he said.