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HONG KONG — It looked like a classic tech product introduction: There was a room packed with fans, a huge screen lit with slick shots of smartphones, and an entrepreneur in dark clothes.
香港——乍一看，这是一场典型的科技产品推介会：现场粉丝云集，一块大屏幕上展示着炫目的智能手机图片，还有一位穿着深色衣装的创业者。
But while Apple’s Timothy D. Cook would most likely gush over the aesthetics of the new iPhone and Xiaomi’s founder, Lei Jun, would earnestly enumerate the number of cores in his latest phone’s processor, the man on stage, Luo Yonghao of the Chinese start-up Smartisan, warmed up the crowd with a comedy routine.
在这样的场合下，苹果(Apple)的蒂莫西·D·库克(Timothy D. Cook)很可能会大谈新iPhone的美学特征，小米的创始人雷军大概会热情地介绍最新款手机的处理器有几个内核。而台上的这名男子——中国创业公司锤子科技的罗永浩——则用讲段子的方式让现场活跃了起来。
Looking up at a slide displaying the specs of his company’s first phone, he read, “Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quadcore processor,” and then said:
他看着幻灯片上对公司第一部手机配置的介绍，同时读到，“高通骁龙801四核处理器，”然后说：
“As for the next few lines, frankly speaking, even though I’m the head of a cellphone company I don’t understand them.”
“下面写了几行字，坦率地讲，虽然我是手机公司的老板，我看不懂。”
A laugh rolled through the room.
现场爆发出一阵笑声。
Mr. Luo, a former English teacher and well-known Chinese Internet personality, is an expert at getting attention. The product release last May was one of a series of presentations he has given over the last two years, part of a plan to build a name for his new company.
罗永浩曾做过英语老师，是中国的网络名人，精通如何吸引众人的关注。去年5月的这场产品发布会是他在过去两年主持的一系列推介活动之一，也是他的新公司的品牌宣传计划的一部分。
It has been working. A video of the event has more than seven million views on the Chinese video site Youku. Sales of the first batch of the company’s phones were constrained by supply chain hitches, but the company still sold nearly a quarter-million smartphones, said Li Jianye, a vice president with the company.
此举效果颇佳。这次活动的录像在中国的视频网站优酷上被观看了逾700万次。锤子公司的副总裁李剑叶表示，第一批手机的销售受到了供应链问题的影响，但仍然售出了近25万部。
Mr. Luo’s success points to a shift in the Chinese consumer market. These days, younger Chinese consumers are looking for cool in smartphones. Rising to meet the demand are a new generation of Chinese start-ups like Mr. Luo’s that recognize they are selling an identity as much as a phone.
罗永浩的成功反映了中国消费市场的风云变幻。如今，年轻的中国消费者想要酷炫的智能手机。包括罗永浩的公司在内的新一代的中国创业企业纷纷迎合这一需求。它们意识到，自己销售的不光是手机，也是一种身份的认同感。
Emboldened by the staggering growth of the five-year-old phone maker Xiaomi, which in December closed a round of financing to make it worth $45 billion, these companies are taking innovation and style risks with low-cost phones to shake up the established order.
受到手机生产商小米的惊人增长的鼓舞，这些公司正在创新和风格方面进行大胆的尝试，纷纷推出低成本的手机，希望能撼动手机行业的现有格局。小米公司创立于五年前，去年12月完成了新一轮融资后，估值高达450亿美元（约合2800亿元人民币）。
Though no smaller companies can yet compare to Xiaomi, the rewards for following in its footsteps can be big. On Monday, the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba announced a $590 million investment for a minority stake in Meizu. Once a maker of MP3 players, Meizu’s middle-range phones are popular with a demographic slightly older and more affluent than the millions loyal to Xiaomi. With the deal, Alibaba will be able to push its mobile operating system on more handsets.
尽管还没有哪家规模不大的企业可以和小米比肩，但效仿它的回报堪称十分可观。周一，中国电商巨头阿里巴巴宣布向魅族投资5.9亿美元，以获得后者的少数股份。魅族曾经出产的是MP3。与小米上百万的忠实粉丝相比，它的中端手机在年龄稍大、经济状况也更好的人群中广受欢迎。凭借这笔交易，阿里巴巴将能把自己的移动操作系统推向更多的手机。
To compete with already established giants like Huawei and Lenovo, companies like Smartisan and Meizu use social media, the fame of their founders and just about any other Internet trick they can think of to build a name for themselves.
为了与华为和联想等老牌巨头竞争，锤子和魅族等手机公司利用社交媒体、创始人的名气，以及他们能够想到的其他任何的网络招数，来为自己制造人气。
“The big shift is the way they’re engaging their customers; all that social media interaction behind the scenes is what’s building a fierce fan loyalty,” said Bryan Ma, an IDC analyst.
“他们对用户的营销方式发生了很大的变化；所有基于社交媒体的互动，真实的意图是想赢得一批忠诚的粉丝用户，”国际数据公司(IDC)的分析师布莱恩·马(Bryan Ma)说。
For Mr. Luo, who has 10.6 million followers on the Chinese social media site Weibo, every post is an advertisement, Mr. Li of Smartisan said in an interview. Emulating Xiaomi, Smartisan also takes comments from fans on official company forums and encourages them to discuss the company’s products.
锤子科技的李剑叶在接受采访时表示，罗永浩在中国社交媒体新浪微博上拥有1060万关注者，他的每一条发帖都是一次广告。与小米一样，锤子科技也会考虑粉丝在公司官方论坛上的评论，并鼓励他们讨论公司的产品。
These types of interactions are slowly creating a more personalized market.
这些互动正慢慢地营造出一个更加个性化的市场。
“In the old days, everyone wanted branded products and luxury goods,” said Ruby Lu, a partner at the venture capital firm DCM.
“过去，人人都想买品牌产品和奢侈品，”风险投资机构DCM的合伙人卢蓉(Ruby Lu)说。
“But people born later, in the ’80s and especially in the ’90s, have a new desire,” she said. “They want a product that defines them, that speaks to them. They want to reject the mainstream definition of who they are.”
“但是年轻人，80后尤其是90后，有了新的渴望，”她说。“他们想要一种能代表自己的产品，能被打动的产品。他们拒绝关于自己身份的主流定义。”
That in part is driving specialization, with different start-ups playing to different demographics and tastes.
这在一定程度上驱动了专门化的趋势：不同的创业公司开始专门来满足不同的群体和口味。
One company, MFox, bills its smartphones as nearly indestructible and targets outdoor types. Yuandian, another small smartphone company, aims its products and marketing at people aged 23 to 25, even taking into account which features stand out when phone users are at nightclubs.
一家名为云狐的公司就宣传，自己出产的智能手机几乎坚不可摧，为户外运动量身打造。另一家名为原点的小型智能手机公司的产品和营销策略，则专门针对23到25岁的人群，甚至考虑到了手机用户在夜店会需要哪些功能。
Smartisan, which features a hammer in its logo, does a lot to try to separate itself from the pack. The company hired Ammunition, a firm founded by Robert Brunner, former Apple director of industrial design, to design its phone. The phone’s software has a number of features that set it apart, including tilelike icons, a function that allows users to hide apps and a way to sort contacts by a variety of categories.
锤子科技的标识就是一把铁锤。公司下了很大力气，尝试把自己同竞争者区分开开。它聘请了苹果的前工业设计总监罗伯特·布伦纳(Robert Brunner)创办的公司Ammunition来设计手机。锤子的软件有很多让它有别于其他手机的特点，包括磁贴状的图标和一个允许用户隐藏应用的功能。此外，用户还可以对联系人进行多种分类。
Analysts say Smartisan’s software and hardware design at times outshines those of larger companies, but they also argue that Mr. Luo’s celebrity is equally important to the company’s success. Mr. Li of Smartisan said customers in part get behind the company because they look up to Mr. Luo as a sort of freethinker in China.
分析人士称，锤子手机的软件和硬件设计在有些方面甚至比大公司都更胜一筹，但他们也表示，罗永浩的名气对公司的成功同等重要。锤子科技的李剑叶说，消费者之所以支持他们的公司，在一定程度上是因为尊敬罗永浩在中国能进行一定的自由思考。
“He tells students how cruel Chinese society can be because of the unfairness everywhere,” Mr. Li said. “He says you will face this when you grow up, but you want to keep your integrity and warm heart.”
“他告诉学生，中国社会可能会因为无处不在的不公平而变得很残忍，”李剑叶说。“他说等你长大了，就会面临这个问题，但你会想要保持自己的正直和热心肠。”
It’s a lesson Mr. Luo learned well growing up in a small, impoverished town bordering North Korea and closer to Vladivostok, Russia, than Beijing.
在贫穷小镇长大的罗永浩对这一点深有体会。那座小镇与朝鲜接壤，并且距俄罗斯的海参崴都比离北京近。
“I was born in the 1970s in a small Chinese town on the border,” Mr. Luo wrote in an email interview. “During a time of malnutrition, I ate enough to become fat. In an environment lacking stimulation, I quit school and read my way to being an intellectual.”
“我出生在上世纪70年代初的中国农村，成长在一个边疆的小城镇，”罗永浩在接受电子邮件采访时写道。“在一个饮食营养普遍不良的时代，吃成了一个胖子，在一个精神食粮严重匮乏的时代，辍学后靠自己读书成为一个知识分子。”
In his 20s, Mr. Luo moved between low-paying jobs, at one point selling kebabs. At 30 he had a sort of midlife crisis.
20多岁时，罗永浩不停地换工作，但都是收入较低的岗位，还一度卖过烤串。30岁时，他经历了某种中年危机。
“I realized I couldn’t keep acting like a kid,” he wrote. “I needed to find a way to enter the middle class.” That was when he decided to join New Oriental as an English teacher. New Oriental, a well-known private education company, runs classes complementing China’s schools.
“我感觉不能再像一个年轻人那样没心没肺地玩下去了，”他写道。“于是决定找一份能迅速达到中产阶级收入水平的工作。”正是在那时，他决定加入新东方，当一名英语老师。新东方是一家著名的私营教育公司，开设校外教育课程。
He gained some fame in the early 2000s, when several students recorded his classes and put them online. Around the same time he also became a figure in China’s early blogging scene, syndicating a number of outspoken — and eventually famous — bloggers on a website that the government shut down because of the politically sensitive nature of the posts.
本世纪初，当几名学生把他的课录下来并传到网上后，罗永浩有了一些名气。大约在同一时间，他也成了中国早期博客圈中的骨干，将许多坦率的博客作者聚集到了一家网站上。这些人最终都出了名。后来，因为帖子的政治敏感性，该网站被政府关闭。
Eventually he struck out on his own, starting up a tutoring service that was similar to New Oriental.
最后，他开创了自己的事业，成立了一家类似于新东方的培训机构。
A gadget enthusiast, Mr. Luo said he long wanted to start his own tech company. He was able to realize that ambition because, like other young Chinese entrepreneurs, he found it relatively easy to attract venture capital investment in China, and to find cheap and capable contract manufacturers there as well.
作为一个热衷于电子设备的人，罗永浩说他长期以来一直想开一家自己的科技公司。他之所以能够实现这个志向，是因为，与中国其他年轻创业者一样，他发现在中国，吸引风投和寻找廉价且能干的外包生产商都相对容易。
For his boldness, and early success, he has no shortage of fans who admire the self-made-man narrative he has carefully promoted. He also has no shortage of critics.
凭着大胆敢言和早期的成功，他不乏粉丝。对于罗永浩精心推广的白手起家的故事，他们赞赏有加。然而，他也不乏批评者。
“A lot of people like him but a lot of people hate him,” Mr. Li said. “If you look online so many people insult him because he is very outspoken.”
“很多人喜欢他，也有很多人讨厌他，”李剑叶说。“如果上网看，很多人骂他就是因为他心直口快。”
Some say he is merely mimicking Xiaomi’s business model, offering little that is different. Those critics have a point: Smartisan’s business model does borrow from Xiaomi. Nonetheless, analysts say the company, and other young Chinese smartphone start-ups, are onto something new, and causing real change in the domestic market.
一些人说，他仅仅是在模仿小米的商业模式，几乎没什么不同。这些批评并非全无道理：锤子科技的商业模式的确借鉴了小米。然而，分析人士称，该公司和中国其他一些年轻的智能手机初创企业都有一些新的东西，并且正在让国内市场发生真正的改变。
Their rise has made the previous generation of electronics giants adapt to compete. Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo have started new phone brands sold and marketed primarily online. DCM’s Ms. Lu also points out that a popular new Huawei phone, the Mate 7, shows the company has stepped up attention to phone design.
他们的崛起促使上一代电子巨头进行调整，与其竞争。华为、中兴和联想都推出了以在线销售和推销为主的手机新品。DCM的卢蓉也指出，华为颇受欢迎的新款手机Mate 7表明，该公司已经增强了对手机设计的关注。
If Smartisan deserves plaudits for hipness in China, it has yet to take the ultimate test and feel out foreign markets. Other young Chinese smartphone start-ups are already having modest success in those arenas.
如果说锤子手机在中国配得起引领潮流的美誉，那么它还需要接受终极考验，去摸清外国市场的形势。其他一些年轻的中国智能手机初创公司，已在这些领域取得了一定的成功。
Xiaomi is selling in a number of developing markets. OnePlus, a Chinese smartphone start-up that began in August 2013, has exceeded the expectations of its founders by using non-Chinese social media, like Twitter and Reddit, to sell its phones across the globe.
小米已经打开了很多发展中国家的市场。通过在Twitter和Reddit等国外社交媒体上面向全球销售手机，成立于2013年8月的中国智能手机初创公司一加也取得了超出了公司创始人预期的成绩。
It lends credence to Mr. Luo’s prediction on what’s next for the industry.
这一点印证了罗永浩对这个行业未来的预测。
“I believe, at least in the low-cost segment, Chinese smartphone companies will dominate the world,” he wrote.
“中国的智能手机会征服全世界……好吧，至少会先征服全世界的中低端消费市场，”他写道。
