Domestic competition is fierce, and Xiaomi enters the UK to seek increment.
Since last year, the pace of Xiaomi's entry into overseas markets has been slightly radical. As we all know, Xiaomi has been ranked first in the Indian market for four consecutive quarters, and the 20 18 Indian market has added a lot of color to Xiaomi's performance. The data shows that in the third quarter of 20 18, Xiaomi's mobile phone business revenue was 35 billion yuan, up 36 1% year-on-year, and the sales of smart phones reached 33.3 million units, up 20.4% year-on-year. Its international business income contributed 22.3 billion, up 1 12.7% year-on-year, accounting for 43.9% of Xiaomi Group's total revenue. Among them, the Indian market has become the fastest growing market for Xiaomi.
After tasting the sweetness of the Indian market, Xiaomi began to extend its reach to other overseas markets. In Mo Xiong's observation, the reason behind Xiaomi's continuous expansion of the international market is actually inseparable from the top of the domestic mobile phone market. The analysis report of the domestic mobile phone market in February 20 18 shows that the domestic smartphone shipments reached 390 million units in February 20 18, down 15.5% year-on-year. The shrinking domestic mobile phone market has led to the stagnation of Xiaomi's mobile phone business. According to the data, the domestic market share of Xiaomi decreased instead of increasing in 20 18 years. In the second quarter, the domestic mobile phone market shipments increased by 0, and the market share even decreased by 16% in the third quarter. In this case, Xiaomi began to look to a new overseas market, namely the European market.
The deployment of the European market, Xiaomi did not start now. Previously, when Lei Jun deployed Xiaomi's global development, he said, "First, take India as a pilot, then Southeast Asia, then Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, and now Europe." As early as 20 18 1 1, Xiaomi officially announced its entry into the British market, joining hands with Xiaomi Pro8 and scooters. After taking the first step into the European market, Xiaomi seems to be more confident at the beginning of the new year. It is reported that the product that 20 19 will launch in the UK market is Xiaomi MIX 3 slide phone, and the first batch of products will be discounted around 500 yuan. Xiaomi also promised to release a 5g version. It can be seen that Xiaomi attaches importance to this British first product. Mo Xiong observed that behind the frequent layout is Xiaomi's ambition to make the British market its own incremental market.
British people's understanding of Xiaomi brand is relatively weak, and it is difficult for Xiaomi to rely solely on cost-effective gameplay.
Wang Xiang, an executive of Xiaomi, said in an interview that he was very confident about entering the British market. This confidence mainly comes from Xiaomi's excellent performance in the Spanish market. 20 18 in the third quarter, Xiaomi occupied 14.5% market share in Spain. Spain, as the first stop in the western European market, gave Xiaomi great confidence, but will the British market really get off to a good start like Spain? Mo Xiong observed that the British market is both an opportunity and a challenge for Xiaomi. The opportunity is that the British market mentioned above has the opportunity to become a new incremental market for Xiaomi, and the challenge is whether it can play in the British market.
At present, the characteristics of British consumers are similar to those of the United States. Most of them take the channel of operators, and operators occupy nearly half of the market share, while the habit of online shopping is only some internet engineers. Therefore, if foreign mobile phone brands want to enter, they must first reach a cooperative relationship with distributors and operators. However, Xiaomi's gameplay in China has always been the Internet model. At the beginning, we chose a cost-effective mobile phone to spread word of mouth, and only then did we lay our own world in the mobile phone market in China. Without sufficient support from British operators, Xiaomi's pace may be greatly hindered, and finally it is difficult to reach consumers and then the sales are cold.
For local operators, there are also many requirements for cooperation with new mobile phone brands. For example, they are very picky about the products and quality requirements of mobile phones. Third, operators who have cooperated with Xiaomi require Xiaomi to provide better entry-level products. Secondly, if mobile phone manufacturers have strategic changes, they also need to run in with local operators. Many years ago, Huawei entered the European market and had in-depth cooperation with local operators. But later, Yu Chengdong, the new ceo of Huawei, changed his strategic direction and began to rebuild the sales channels and become his own public brand. Since then, many European operators have taken off Huawei mobile phones, resulting in a 60% drop in Huawei's profits. Later, it took Huawei a long time to re-establish the channel trust relationship with local operators, so Mo Xiong observed that Huawei's initial challenge in Europe remained the same, and it was obviously a little difficult for Xiaomi, as a latecomer, to continue to use the cost-effective advantage to impact the European market. In the future, Xiaomi needs to establish a strong competitive barrier in the recognition of new brands.
Xiaomi 20 19 is very difficult to attack and defend.
20 18 Xiaomi promised users that Xiaomi is an internet company, and the highest profit rate of hardware sales to consumers is set at 5%, and all the excess will be returned to consumers. In determining the core strategy, 2065 438+08 165438+ Lei Jun set the goal of AI+loT at Xiaomi's AIoT developer conference. Not long ago, Xiaomi announced the dual-engine strategy of Xiaomi's "mobile phone +AIoT" at the annual meeting. It can be seen that although Xiaomi regards lot as an important direction in the future, Xiaomi's hardware business is still the top priority, and the mobile phone business is also an important layout for the future Internet of Things era.
Lei Jun said frankly at the annual meeting that winter is coming, and 20 19 is about to face the most severe challenge, so there is no room for blind optimism. Yes, in 20 18, Glory officially announced its entry into the strategic stage of Rongwulian Ecology and New Retail 3.0, and oppo also launched its sub-brand Zhimeixin products a few days ago. For oppo, an independent new brand can better distinguish the brand architecture of mobile phones and Internet of Things devices, and can also lay the first step for the upcoming 5g. But no matter which one seems to be eager to move, they all want to enter the ecological hinterland of Xiaomi lot and share a piece of it. 20 19 with the arrival of 5g mobile phones from various mobile phone manufacturers, the competition in the domestic mobile phone market will become more intense, and the mobile phone market will face another reshuffle.
Therefore, the pressure that Xiaomi is currently facing is indeed not small. First of all, to gain a foothold in the European market, we need to come up with the best products for consumers to recognize, and occupying the European market means that we can gain recognition in the global mobile phone market, but Xiaomi mobile phone has not left a high-end impression before, and even been called an assembly machine by the outside world. "For people who don't know us, they think that low price means poor quality, and it will take time to reverse this view," said Wang Xiang, an executive of Xiaomi. On the other hand, Europeans pay more attention to the patent awareness of mobile phone products. According to the data published by the European Patent Office (EPO), Huawei applied for 2,398 patents in 20 17, ranking first in the world. However, Xiaomi is lacking in this respect, and it is really not easy to break through the UK in a short time. Finally, Mo Xiong pointed out that Xiaomi should guard against domestic competitors on the one hand, and consider the expansion of overseas markets on the other. It's really difficult to attack and defend.