In theory, other mobile phone manufacturers, even IT manufacturers, give Xiaomi an IT company, mainly because Lei Jun was born in Jinshan and invested in many IT companies.
All because on the 22nd, Xiaomi announced that it had obtained new financing, which made the world gradually see the true face of Xiaomi.
Earlier, according to media reports, Xiaomi has carried out several rounds of financing. 20 1 1 At the end of the year, Xiaomi Company completed a round of financing with the amount of 4 1 10,000 USD. The investors are Morningstar, Qi Ming and IDG, with a valuation of $250 million. 20 1 1 year 65438+February, Xiaomi Company completed a new round of financing with a valuation of 1 billion USD. Investors include Qi Ming, IDG, Shunwei Fund, Temasek, Qualcomm and Morningside; . 20 12 At the end of June, Xiaomi Company announced that it had successfully raised 2160,000 USD with a valuation of 4 billion USD. Investors include Russian DST.
According to relevant investment bankers, this financing was exclusively invested by DST, and Xiaomi did not contact with any other investors during the investment process. The relevant person in charge said that if other investment bids are made, the valuation of this round of investment will be higher.
Not only does this round of investment show DST's confidence in Xiaomi, but more importantly, Xiaomi has tickets for China Internet Billion Club.
It is worth noting that after the three tabs (Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu) of Billion Club monopolized the Internet in China for many years, at the end of August, the stock prices of Qihoo 360 and Netease were close to $80, and the total market value was close to10 billion. Coupled with Xiaomi, Billion Club has three associate members at once. The difference is that most people never regard Xiaomi as an Internet company.
In fact, Xiaomi lurks deep. In just three years, the basic layout of the Internet has been completed.
On the bright side, Xiaomi is famous for his mobile phone. According to Flurry's statistics, in the first six months of 20 13, Xiaomi's market share jumped to the third place, ranking behind Apple and Samsung. In August, Xiaomi released a red rice mobile phone with a price of 799 yuan. After the first round of 65438+ 10,000 units were robbed, the second round of 65438+ 10,000 units was released again.
But just by selling mobile phones, Xiaomi can't develop into a billion-dollar enterprise in three years anyway.
On the dark side, Xiaomi has built a mobile phone, MIUI and Mi Chat Troika in just three years. This is a Xiaomi ecosystem around Xiaomi mobile phone. Lei Jun has repeatedly stressed that Xiaomi is not only a smartphone manufacturer, but also an Internet company. He said that the mobile phone is just a carrier, just like "Microsoft used to carve the Windows operating system on a CD and sell it in a box", but it doesn't mean that "Microsoft is a company that makes paper boxes". The implication is that Lei Jun is talking about Xiaomi's ecosystem. Xiaomi deeply customized his MIUI system based on Android, and the ecosystem refers to the huge mobile Internet platform built around it.
It is its quietly formed ecosystem that makes Xiaomi's tens of billions of valuations not become an Internet bubble.
The mobile phone market in China is highly competitive. The high-end market is dominated by Samsung and Apple, and the low-end market is occupied by several domestic manufacturers such as Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo and Coolpad. As a latecomer, Xiaomi actually relies on the price war of high-end machine quality selling cabbage prices.
This strategy has been used by enterprises in China for many years. Color TV companies have used it. Changhong and TCL beat foreign brands by price war. Air-conditioning companies have used it. Gree and Haier won half of the domestic air-conditioning market by the word "cheap". Mobile phone companies have also used it. Many domestic mobile phones use various cottage phones, and thousands of mobile phones are shopping with Nokia and Samsung.
However, many people ignore a result, that is, after the price war withstood the foreign enemy, they immediately fought the price war with their own people. On the surface, consumers have gained a lot. In fact, domestic manufacturers without core technology wasted their strength in the price war and soon lost in subversive product changes.
If Xiaomi does not deploy the Internet, especially the mobile Internet, it will repeat the mistakes of its predecessors.
"The mobile phone is just a carrier. Xiaomi's specific business is attached to this hardware, which is on the Internet platform. In other words, Xiaomi is doing an internet-based platform. " Lei Jun's recent statement to the media has a realistic desire.
To achieve this, it is not the development of Xiaomi in the past three years, but Lei Jun's own resources and the resource advantage created by a "San Francisco".
The so-called "San Francisco" refers to a group of people who came out of Jinshan Company and entered the world. Some media described the resource layout of Lei Jun and his Xiaomi as follows: "Its products, hardware team from Motorola's team, and software research and development with veterans of Jinshan Google Tencent are all contacts accumulated by Lei Jun for many years; Its price, set off by the number of running software Ann Bunny, is very cost-effective; Its channels include communication operators, Vanke and other e-commerce companies invested by Lei Jun, and Tencent, a giant closely related to Jinshan. There are many ways to promote IT, such as limited delivery. You don't have to worry about the boss platforms of Leijun companies such as Vanke, YY and UCWeb, as well as the promotion of professional IT media such as Drive House. "
No matter how big the layout advantage is, it also needs a clear strategic direction. How should Xiaomi with a valuation of10 billion expand its advantages instead of expanding its bubble?
Hugo barra joined Xiaomi not only because of Xiaomi's successful financing, but also because of Google co-founder Sergey? Brin's new relationship with Barra's ex-girlfriend who is also a Google employee led to Barra's departure.
According to media reports, Hugo, former vice president of Google Android product development? Barra will be responsible for managing Xiaomi's international business development department.
From Barra's resume, we can clearly see Xiaomi's next strategy. He grew up in Brazil and received education there, and then came to the United States to get a master's degree at MIT. He joined Google in 2008 as the product manager of the mobile team, and previously worked in the speech recognition company Nuance.
Communications also holds a similar position. Barra worked in London for the first three years at Google, and then transferred to Mountain View, California.
The development of mobile products and the comprehensive optimization of Android system will be Barra's initial task in Xiaomi, and then it will comprehensively promote the internationalization of Xiaomi, avoid Xiaomi from fishing with domestic counterparts, and finally gradually retire from the altar in the price war. Like Duncan, chairman of BDA China, a consulting firm? Clark said that the problem with Xiaomi is that it is a small company, but it is too big; As a big company, but too small. Clark believes that if Xiaomi wants to be a big company like Samsung, then it needs to look to more markets.
Nicole, research director of China, market research organization Konashe Company? Peng said that Barra, as a former Google Android executive, will be able to use his experience to help Xiaomi expand its business in overseas markets. He said: "If Xiaomi can do this well, then the company will achieve leapfrog development."
However, in the early days of globalization, Xiaomi still relied on the price advantage, and its so-called internet characteristics would not do much in the early days of globalization. According to IDC data, in the second quarter of this year, smartphones with prices below $250 accounted for 49% of global smartphone shipments, up from 365,438+0% at the beginning of last year. Obviously, the biggest beneficiaries of this trend will be the low-cost smartphone manufacturers in China and India.
The problem is that this step is essentially in conflict with Lei Jun's troika goal.
China's demographic dividend is declining, and the status of the world's factory will inevitably shift to other third countries. In the price advantage of Xiaomi, too much core hardware comes from Japanese and Korean manufacturers, and its price neck will inevitably be curbed by others. On the Internet platform, Xiaomi's software and services are not necessarily better than Lenovo and 360, nor can they compete with Tencent and Baidu's mobile Internet strategy. Not to mention a decisive battle with foreign manufacturers in an unfamiliar market.
Xiaomi, which has gradually lost its price advantage and has no core advantages in software, hardware and services, can only rely on10 billion valuation and a foreigner. The signboard of China Fourth Internet Company can only be painted on paper, which can't be true.