Millet mobile phone calls the smart temptation of the iPhone

On August 15, 2011, Google, the world’s largest search engine company, announced that it had acquired Motorola, the global leader in mobile phones, at a cash price of US$40 per share.

On the second day after Google announced the acquisition of Motorola, a small domestic company, Beijing Xiaomi Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Xiaomi Technology) announced that it will launch a civilian-priced smart phone in October this year. - Xiaomi mobile phone, to call Apple mobile phone.

For the prospect of Xiaomi’s mobile phone, people in the industry have expressed that they are not optimistic. More market participants believe that Xiaomi Technology's release of this phone will eventually appear defeated.

Millet phone can go far?

On August 16th, Jinshan Software, Joyo’s founder and Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun released his first millet phone in Beijing’s 798 art venue. According to the company's introduction, this Xiaomi phone is China's first dual-core 1.5G smart phone, and is also the world's fastest smartphone, priced at only 1999 yuan. However, this activity, which was enthusiastically pursued by more than 500 journalists, was widely questioned by industry insiders.

On August 22, an industry insider interviewed by the financial weekly reporter said that once the domestic mobile phones such as Bird, China Telecom, and Amoi eventually ended in failure, and the road to China’s mobile phone industry was not a good one.

On August 23rd, Chen Xi (a pseudonym), a person in charge of the R&D headquarters of the original Harbin New Shanghai, said that Millet’s mobile phone manufacturing cost was close to 1,200 yuan, but its price was only 1,999 yuan. Almost no money to make. "Lack of core technology, it is difficult to do business at low prices for a long time." Chen Xiao said that the appearance of Xiaomi's mobile phone is also the integration of several mobile phones on the market. There is no personality. "I personally do not favor a mobile phone without a core technology."

As early as before the launch of Xiaomi Mobile on August 16th, rumors about “Millet Technology is secretly developing mobile phones and targeting the company directly” have already been widely reported in the industry.

In the eyes of many people in the industry, Xiaomi's mobile phone not only wants to call overseas companies, but the domestic smart phone giants ZTE, Huawei, and Lenovo are also its imaginary enemies.

Lei Jun, head of Xiaomi Science and Technology, said in an interview with the media that in 1987 he was a freshman and he saw the book "Fire in Silicon Valley" in the Wuhan University Library. He described Jobs and other groups of computer hobbyists. The technological revolution that set off in Silicon Valley. Since then, Lei Jun has wanted to be a unique person, eager to create a world-class technology company like Steve Jobs.

"ZTE and Huawei are taking the global market, and the technology has accumulated for so many years. Both the technology and the industry chain are very mature. And Xiaomi, to be honest, is actually a solution company. Even its own sales channels are not." Chen Hao, head of the new Shanghai R&D headquarters said.

For Xiaomi mobile phone to adopt the online booking of this sales channel, Chen Hao believes that the domestic mobile phone manufacturers sales channels are not very good to build, "Actually, Xiaomi mobile phone network reservations is Dell's network sales model used very long ago. In China, online reservations and sales require more honesty. However, things on the Internet are all sorts of strange things. It's a good idea to say bad.”

Compared to Chen Yu’s doubts about the future of Xiaomi’s mobile phone, Zhang Lihua, who once worked for Huawei, bluntly stated: “This Xiaomi Technology’s release of this mobile phone can anticipate the outcome of the impending defeat.”

"Millet did not immediately release the bulk delivery time, it forgot that the biggest competitor of the global mobile phone brand manufacturers is the cottage mobile phone. Because Xiaomi technology is not clear when it will be available in bulk, this may make Taobao full of a week later. The cottage phone, and even the 'millet', 'rice' mobile phones in advance." Zhang Lihua think.

On August 23, the reporter saw on Taobao.com, the 14-page webpage after the search was conducted with the keyword “Millet Mobile” as the keyword, and there were already sellers from Guangdong, Shenzhen, Shaanxi, Anhui and other regions playing “pre-made”. The "sale" banner is publicly available on the Internet to sell Xiaomi mobile phones. Its Internet price ranges from 1999 yuan to 2,300 yuan.

Zhang Lihua said that in China's mobile phone market is currently a strong cloud, especially in the face of Huawei and ZTE mobile phones that have been successfully implemented in the international arena, such as Xiaomi lack of mobile phone hardware and software experience of novice, can be predicted is the outcome of the impending defeat.

Another domestic mobile phone industry also expressed concern about the prospects of Xiaomi’s mobile phone. “After a few years of loss testing, it is not really into the Chinese mobile phone circle. Huawei’s mobile phone has experienced a loss period of nearly four years. ZTE’s mobile phones have experienced Losing time is longer. As for the TCL mobile that was once regarded as the classic of the business school, it shows the cruel situation that a cell phone's inventory pressure can lead to the closing of a company."

"Is Xiaomi ready to make a loss? How long can I lose? The mobile phone is not that fun." The above-mentioned industry insiders gave his opinion on the market prospects of Xiaomi's mobile phone.

Huawei, ZTE prefer high-end and high-end smartphones

On August 10, 2011, ZTE Corporation (18.60, -0.03, -0.16%) released its 2011 Interim Results Express. In the first half of the year, the company realized operating income of 37.345 billion yuan, an increase of 21.55% year-on-year; in the first half of the year, it achieved a net profit of 769 million yuan, a year-on-year decline of 12.42%.

According to Gao Li, analyst of Huachuang Securities Communication Industry, in the face of explosive growth of smart phones, ZTE has invested in several models of terminals in the low-end smartphone market in order to establish a brand in the shortest time and to seize the market. "But these low-end smartphones did not bring profits to the company. They only increased revenue, and they also lowered the gross margin by more than two points."

As a result, the company’s operating revenue from mobile phone products accounted for 30.03% of the total operating income from 25.35% in the same period last year, while the overall gross profit margin of mobile phone products dropped from 22.71% in the same period of last year to 19.63%.

However, considering the overall revenue, ZTE Corporation is gradually shifting its profit growth from low-end smartphones to more profitable mid-to-high-end smartphones during the first half of this year.

According to company announcements, ZTE's overall revenue in its terminals in the first half of this year increased by about 5 points to 30.03%. If it analyzes its year-on-year increase, compared to the growth rate of 39% last year, this year the company has achieved a year-on-year growth of 43.96% (112.1 billion yuan this year and 7.79 billion yuan last year).

Gao Li believes that this also makes ZTE see the drawback of only increasing revenue without increasing profits. “Therefore, ZTE may adopt new strategies in the second half of the year, not focusing on quantity and focusing on profits. It will make efforts in the mid-range and even high-end models, and will no longer be focused on making valuable resources and work at the bottom of not making money or making low profits. Models."

ZTE is also focusing on the layout of mid-to-high-end smart phones, as well as its rival, Huawei. Public figures show that Huawei’s revenue grew by 60% in the first half of 2010, which also benefited from the company’s revenue in mid-end models.

It is reported that in the first half of 2010, Huawei's smart phone shipments increased by 40%, while revenue increased by 60%, thanks to the development of midrange models.

According to Huawei's 2010 annual report, for the future development trend of smart phones, Huawei believes that the current smart phone also means expensive, and the global scope is only a few people's choice. In leading countries, operators have formulated strategies to make smartphone users account for more than 50% of total users in 2015. Operators' support and rapid cost reduction will be a prerequisite for the popularity of smartphones.

Huawei expects that broadband will become ubiquitous by 2020. There will be 6 billion smart phone users worldwide, and 50 billion terminals will be connected via the Internet.

In early September 2010, Huawei released the world’s first native Android 2.2 with Google smartphone IDEOS, which is also the world’s first universal smart phone. In the next three years, the company said that its smart phones will maintain rapid growth. "We expect the Android operating system's smart phones to grow most rapidly, and will become the most widely used smart machine operating system in the world by 2014." The company has very high expectations for smartphones in its annual report.

Domestic smart phones are becoming more and more competitive

“This month, 85% of the mobile phones sold by our sales offices are smart phones. 2G mobile phones are now becoming less and less, and most of them are bought by the elderly. The average customer is to buy a big screen and a large one. Capacity, access to the Internet, fast smartphones.” On August 23, a person in charge of a China Unicom business hall revealed in an interview.

The other party said that it is indisputable that in the mobile phone sales in the business hall every month, the proportion of Apple's mobile phone sales has always been a leading position. "More than half of smart phone sales in March of this year were Apple phones. In August, smartphone sales accounted for about 85% of the total, and half of them are Apple phones."

Regarding sales of domestic smart phones, ZTE, Huawei, Coolpad, and Lenovo have all been on the list of sales statistics given by the other party.

“Last month, ZTE launched a new smart phone that sold very well, ranked first in sales. But in the previous month, sales ranked first in a Huawei smartphone. Basically, At present, ZTE, Huawei, and Lenovo are among the top three in the domestic smartphone market."

The other party told reporters that the competition between smart phones in China is becoming increasingly fierce. "Basically, a new mobile phone will be available in two or three months. It will be updated too quickly, and the time for the launch of some brand-name cottage phones will be faster."

However, the other party also said that compared to Apple, HTC and other international brands, domestic smart phones in the appearance, function, or operating system there is a big gap, needs to be strengthened. "From our current monthly sales situation, Apple's mobile phone sales accounted for more than half, and its sales are still very strong."

As for the doubts about whether Xiaomi’s mobile phone will instigate the status of Apple’s mobile phone, the other party said that they have never heard of this phone. “At present, it is highly configured, but when it comes to a real release, it may be that other brands have the same configuration of mobile phones. There have been a lot of money."

"Like Nokia's latest low-priced smart machine, the price will be around 2,000 yuan, but the screen resolution in the configuration is 8.1 million pixels, which is already a little higher than your Xiaomi phone resolution." The person in charge of the above-mentioned China Unicom Business Office told the reporter.

The other party stated that if it is only based on price and hardware, Nokia and Sony Ericsson have already launched new smart phones with the same configuration as Xiaomi's mobile phone, and its price of around 2,000 yuan is not the same as 1999 yuan reported by Xiaomi Mobile. Big. In her view, the market competitiveness of Xiaomi's mobile phone is not great, as to whether it can share the market share of Apple's mobile phone, the other said that this is almost impossible.

Lei Jun’s ambition

Twenty years ago, the 22-year-old Lei Jun joined Jinshan, who had only five or six people at the time, and went all the way from the manager of the development department to the general manager of the company and brought Kingsoft into the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In the meantime, he invested and sold Joyo. After leaving Kingsoft in 2007, he has invested in 17 start-up companies such as Vanke, UC Web, and Multiplayer Network, which have performed well in the market. According to Lei Jun’s own statement, when he was almost 40 years old, he “has seemed to have achieved all goals in life. At least, everything has been done, but after doing so, it has become even more confused”.

At this time, the mobile Internet is in the ascendant. Because of the angel investment relationship, Lei Jun is also considered to be one of the big names in this field.

However, "Lei Jun's ambition should be far more than just an angel investor. He should have started his own business long ago." Earlier this year, Lei Jun also used Xiaomi Technology as an angel investor to show people outside, the innovation workshop management partner Wang Hua. It has made such predictions for the media. However, Lei Jun himself did not formally confirm to outsiders that the millet technology had its investment and was founded by him personally until mid-July of this year, and will launch its own-brand mobile phone in the second half of the year.