Ma Yun said that the tuyere is coming. If the pig can fly, the pig will be killed as soon as the tuyere passes.
This sentence is in line with Lei Jun's original rhetoric, and it is also very suitable for Xiaomi now. It is certainly not a long-term solution to maintain the operation of enterprises by means of tuyere.
When the "trump card" mode of making a fortune with high cost performance becomes a chronic disease of Xiaomi, what drugs such as diversification, hierarchical system, dual brands and AIOT can be drunk without pain ...?
Series report (1)
Can 5G Fengkou Xiaomi offer a new "trump card"?
In 20 18, the mobile phone industry shivered in the cold wind, small and medium-sized mobile phone manufacturers closed down or struggled to survive in the cracks, the market became saturated, and the frequency of smartphone upgrading decreased, making this year's mobile phone market full of challenges. 20141100,000 smartphones, compared with 2065438,
Under such a severe situation, many research institutions or people in the industry generally believe that the downward trend of the industry may continue until the arrival of 5G this year. Many mobile phone companies have also laid out the "life-saving straw" of 5G, and Xiaomi's "hot search" system is no exception. While displaying the folding screen engineering machine, Xiaomi also officially launched the "mobile phone +AIoT" dual-engine strategy, which will be the core strategy of Xiaomi in the next five years.
The withered mobile phone market needs "vitality"
20 18 is not easy for both the smart phone market in China and the global smart phone market.
The analysis report on the operation of the domestic mobile phone market in February of 20 18 released by China ICT Institute shows that the total shipment of the domestic mobile phone market in 20 18 was 4140,000 units, down15.6% year-on-year; Among them, smartphone shipments were 390 million units, down 65,438+05.5% year-on-year.
According to IDC's global smartphone shipment data in 2018, the overall smartphone market shipment was 20140.49 million units, down 4. 1% year-on-year. The data of Strategy Analytics also shows that in 20 18, global smartphone shipments were1429.7 billion units, down 5% year-on-year, and the smartphone industry experienced a decline for the first time. In this regard, IDC analysis, 20 18 smart phone market did not see too many positive signs of activity, which has several factors, including extending the replacement cycle of mobile phones and increasing penetration. Many big markets, political and economic uncertainties and rising product prices have led to increased consumer frustration.
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"Affected by the macroeconomic environment and the homogenization of mobile phones, the situation of the smart phone industry at this stage is not optimistic." Yang Bojun, an analyst in the mobile phone industry, told China State Grid, "The homogenization of mobile phones is too serious. Whether it is Xiaomi Huawei or OPPO vivo, although they have been developing new machines, their product differences are not particularly obvious. "
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In the weak market environment, technological progress is becoming less and less obvious. Manufacturers try their best to stimulate buying impulse from the marketing point of view, but product innovation is not enough to support users' purchasing power, and users' demand can only be reduced like a trickle. In the past year, Tianjin Samsung, with a production capacity of 36 million units/year, was exposed to shut down its factory. Hammer Technology, which was rumored to be bankrupt, sold some patents. The former domestic mobile phone giant Gionee went bankrupt, and Meizu's mobile phone sales were bleak. Meitu, which was also unbearable for sales pressure, was "married" to Xiaomi. Since Xiaomi entered the capital market, Apple's orders have been greatly reduced in the high-priced storm, and Coolpad, which failed to recover after the LeTV storm, is facing the risk of "delisting". Lenovo, which has fallen to the edge, has a domestic market share of only 0.4%, while Motorola, which was acquired by Lenovo, has even disappeared from consumers' shopping lists, and the golden age of "letting a hundred flowers blossom" in China's mobile phone market is gone forever.
Smart phones are looking for the development track of the home appliance industry and are beginning to enter the oligopoly era. A person in charge of a domestic mobile phone manufacturer said that the whole mobile phone industry is in a stage of ups and downs, and in the period when the market is relatively saturated, the share will be concentrated in the hands of a few manufacturers. For the strategy of breaking the game, he mentioned 5 G. "The arrival of 5G technology may change. Some manufacturers look good now and may fall behind soon. Some companies may develop rapidly because of innovative technologies. "
"Due to the saturation of the domestic smart phone market and the extension of the replacement cycle, the development of smart phones has experienced several' replacement tides'." According to the analysis from the perspective of replacement demand, every "replacement tide" is accompanied by a technical application to solve the pain points of consumers. "Before the commercialization of 5G mobile phones, the downward trend of mobile phone sales will continue."
It is foreseeable that the next 5G era will inevitably become the focus of global smartphone competition. Both industries and enterprises hope that 5G will be a new outlet and bring vitality to the smart phone market. Xiaomi is no exception. It can even be said that Xiaomi's expectation of 5G technology is not lower than that of any mobile phone company. After all, this company, which has been listed for more than half a year, has accumulated a market value of 1000 billion, and is eager to find "confidence" in the capital market.
The "depressed" millet needs a new "trump card"
Cost-effective and hunger marketing are the unique "advantages" of Xiaomi since its establishment. How many mobile phone brands tried to imitate, but never surpassed. This advantage has enabled Xiaomi to occupy a certain share in the mobile phone market, and also helped Xiaomi successfully go public in Hong Kong. However, after Xiaomi went public, the answer sheet handed over was not ideal. The stock price keeps falling, the market value keeps evaporating, and the situation is worrying.
Judging from the initial issue price of HK$ 65,438+07 per share, the initial market value of Xiaomi is US$ 54.3 billion. On the first day of Xiaomi's listing on July 9, the opening price was HK$ 16.6, which was 2.35% lower than the issue price, and the market value was about US$ 52 billion. Although at the beginning of listing, brokerage institutions such as Deutsche Capital, Macquarie, Everbright Securities and Southwest Securities all gave Xiaomi "overweight" and "buy" ratings in the research report, and the target price was between HK$ 19.6-30.3 per share, but the capital market did not think so.
On the second day of listing, it opened at HK$ 65,438+07 per share and closed at HK$ 65,438+09 per share. After that, the main theme of going down has hardly wavered. Last year, it fell to HK$ 65,438 +0 1.4/ share. By the beginning of the year, 65438+10.8, Xiaomi's share price had fallen almost all the way since the opening, with an intraday decline of 7.83%. By the close of the day, it closed at 1 1. 1 HK$, down 7.5% from the issue price, with a turnover of HK$134 million and a market value of US$ 33.8 billion.
654381October 9, 3 billion shares of millet were lifted, and the opening price was HK$ 10.64 per share, which fell by more than 5% again, and the market value also shrank to about US$ 33 billion. Since the lifting of the ban, Xiaomi's share price has been falling continuously, closing at HK$ 9.7 on June 65438+1October 16, down 2.6 1% from the previous day. So far, Xiaomi's share price has fallen by more than 55% compared with the highest point in the past six months, and its market value has evaporated by more than HK$ 654.38+050 billion.
Experienced the lowest valley of 65438+ 10 month 16. Since 65438+1October 17, millet has been planted in 65438+1October 18, 65438+1October 2 1 and 65438+/kl respectively. However, in the eyes of the industry, this is only a short-term support for the stock price. In the era of negative growth of global smartphones, Xiaomi's future performance in the "stormy" stock price is still in a downward trend.
Cost effectiveness is a double-edged sword. For Xiaomi, it is also a response to the sentence "Success also defeats Xiao He in Xiao He".
With the acceleration of consumption upgrading, the mid-to-high-end mobile phone market has risen, and the market is booming in a depressed environment. In addition to Apple and Samsung, flagship models such as Huawei and oppo have impacted the mid-to-high-end market structure, leaving an unshakable position footprint. Of course, these have nothing to do with Xiaomi. Although the shipment volume is in the top five in the world, Xiaomi's sales are more from India, Vietnam and other low-end overseas markets that meet its cost-effective positioning. Xiaomi 20 18' s third quarter financial report shows that Xiaomi's overseas mobile phone shipments increased by 60%, with revenue of 22 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 40% of Xiaomi's total revenue.
There is no high-end "masterpiece" is Xiaomi's stubborn disease, so he began to "plot" the high-end route in order to squeeze into the "upper class" market. The interim report of Xiaomi 20 18 shows that the strategic focus of Xiaomi in China in 20 18 is to enter the high-end smart phone market. In the second quarter, the average selling price of Xiaomi smartphones in Chinese mainland increased by more than 25% year-on-year; In the fourth quarter, Xiaomi launched MIX 3, the third product of MIX series in the high-end market, but it obviously had little effect.
"Xiaomi has always taken a conservative and moderate route," said Yang Bojun. Even the most expensive MIX 3 is actually a full screen+slider. "After the release, there were many voices in the outside world saying that it was retrogressive and did not make a comprehensive screen that was not a slider."
The data shows that at the end of September, 20 18, the inventory of millet increased by 22% compared with the end of June, and by 62% compared with the end of February, 20 17. According to IDC report, the domestic shipment of Xiaomi 20 18 in the fourth quarter was1030,000 units, which was 34.9% lower than that in the fourth quarter of 20 17. Compared with Huawei's 23.3% increase in the same period, Xiaomi's competitive pressure is unprecedented. Sui Qian, director of Strategy Analytics, believes that the growth of Xiaomi dropped sharply in the last few months of last year due to the backlog of inventory and fierce price competition from major regions such as Huawei and Realme, such as China and India. He bluntly said, "Xiaomi will face a more difficult situation in 20 19. If growth continues to decline, it may be difficult to maintain profits. "
Lei Jun has obviously realized many problems of Xiaomi mode. On the eve of the Spring Festival, Xiaomi announced that the Redmi brand will be officially independent, positioning itself as "extremely cost-effective, focusing on the e-commerce market", while Xiaomi flagship machine focuses on the high-end market of smart phones. On February 20, Xiaomi 9 was released, and Lei Jun said, "This may be the last time that Xiaomi's mobile phone was priced within 3,000." It is true that he seems to think that the price of 2999 yuan does not accord with people's impression of high premium in the high-end market.
While entrusting the "cost performance" to Redmi, Xiaomi also bid farewell to the flat management that he was proud of. Recently, the hierarchical reform of internal employees has been formally implemented, and the management level of employees in the company has been refined to Commissioner, manager, director, vice president and above, with a rating similar to Huawei's 13 to 23. The level of Commissioner is about 13, the manager is about 16 to 17, the director is about 19 to 20, and the vice president is about 22. There are different opinions on this reform measure. Some people think that in the long run, Xiaomi will separate Redmi, further subdivide the low-end market, and the management mode will change from flat to layered, which is conducive to the long-term sustainable development of Xiaomi in the domestic mobile phone market. However, some people worry that Xiaomi will lose the advantage of flat management after establishing the rank system.
At the independent launch conference of "Redmi Redmi" brand, Lei Jun once said: "Before Xiaomi was founded, I was a die-hard fan of Huawei. I know many of Ren Zheng Fei's speeches. I have told you many times that domestic brands should unite and raise their guns. " It can be seen that no matter what the outside world thinks, Lei Jun, as a "Huawei hardcore powder", is pushing Xiaomi to learn from Huawei, which is an established fact. In addition to learning Huawei's multi-brand, multi-product line and multi-channel management experience in consumer business, we are also learning Huawei's mature management experience. This is also a new journey for Xiaomi, which has been established for 8 years and has 20,000 employees.
Can "mobile phone +AIoT" become the next chip?
Lei Jun said that the current global mobile phone market is experiencing a phased low tide, which will continue until the arrival of real large-scale commercialization of 5G, and Xiaomi is ready for a protracted war. "We will also continue to practice our internal strength, lay a solid foundation in terms of quality, innovation and delivery, and make solid preparations for the 5 G spring."
In addition to internal management reform, Xiaomi, who wants to catch a 5G ride, took the initiative to attack before the arrival of 5G spring.
65438+1October 1 1, Xiaomi's annual meeting, Lei Jun officially announced and launched Xiaomi's core strategy for the next five years from 20 19, namely "mobile phone +AIoT" dual-engine strategy. "In the next five years, Xiaomi will continue to invest more than10 billion yuan in the AIoT field." This strategy was also reflected in the share repurchase announcement of 5438+ 10/7 in June. Xiaomi announced that, driven by the Internet business model and the "mobile phone +AIoT" dual-engine strategy, the company expressed its confidence in the immediate and long-term business prospects through share repurchase.
"Mobile phone +AIoT" dual engine, in which mobile phone is a stumbling block. According to Lei Jun, "the mobile phone business has always been the first camp in the world, which is a victory", but from the above analysis, it can be seen that Xiaomi's current first camp in the world is more supported by the sales of low-end red rice mobile phones in overseas markets, and positioning high-end Xiaomi mobile phones has little credit. Some people may refute the record of "Xiaomi 9 sold out in 53 seconds on the first sale day" on February 26th. Admittedly, this does reflect that Xiaomi has been sought after by consumers to some extent, but from the feedback from the outside world, who can say that this is not its consistent cost-effective+hunger marketing strategy? Returning to the topic of low-price strategy in overseas markets, Xiaomi's low-price model will certainly bring about a surge in shipments in a short period of time, but compared with high-end positioning brands such as Apple, Samsung and Huawei, Xiaomi's profit margin is obviously insufficient. In the long run, if the reform of Xiaomi's dual-brand strategy and management model is successful and effective, it is hard to say. Otherwise, how long can such an incremental market last?
From the perspective of AIoT layout, AIoT refers to AI+IoT, that is, the integration of artificial intelligence technology and the Internet of Things in practical applications. These are the two most recognized application scenarios in the 5G era. As the new concept continues to overheat, from BAT to unicorn in AI industry, the AIoT strategy is announced in unison. But Xiaomi's AIoT seems different. Lei Jun said that for Xiaomi, AIoT is "All in IoT".
Objectively speaking, Xiaomi has certain advantages in IoT. In 20 13, Xiaomi hatched an ecological chain centered on mobile phones. After years of development, Xiaomi has been one step ahead in the layout of IoT. By the end of 2011,Xiaomi Internet of Things platform has connected 65438+32 million smart devices (excluding mobile phones and laptops) and supported over 2,000 devices. At the beginning of the year, Xiaomi strategically invested in TCL, and TCL has begun to lay out its supply chain and OEM capacity in advance.
But interestingly, Reebs said "All in IoT", but Xiaomi's slogan is AI+IoT. What is the layout advantage of Xiaomi in AI? Xiao Ai's classmate? Yang Bojun believes that Xiao Ai students are more likely to realize IOT links through voice interaction, which is still in the initial stage. At this stage, Xiao Ai is still getting a lot of data, and judging a person's behavior habits through big data analysis, thus improving the user experience.
If "mobile phone +AIoT" is the "trump card" of Xiaomi's core strategy for the 5G era, then Xiaomi seems to have a long way to go, whether as an "Internet company" positioned by Lei Jun or as a "hardware company" for capital market evaluation.