Text/Yang Jianyong
At the Xiaomi new product launch, Xiaomi officially benchmarked Apple and learned from Apple. Lei Jun also said that mobile phone sales have reached the first place in the world for three years. And will invest more than 100 billion yuan in research and development in the next five years, and die hardcore technology. It should be noted that in the second quarter of this year, Xiaomi's shipments once surpassed Apple, ranking second in the world, and the gap with Samsung is not large, showing Xiaomi's strong competitiveness in the global mobile phone market. Unfortunately, with the strong demand for the iPhone 13, Xiaomi's mobile phone shipments fell in an embarrassing situation in the third quarter, and Apple rose to the second place in the world. However, the gap between the shipments of the two is weak, which can be seen that the two sides are equal in the market.
The picture comes from the Xiaomi public account
Mobile phone shipments are not divided, but the ability to make money is in the sky
According to the global mobile phone tracking report released by IDC for the third quarter of 2021, Apple's shipments in the quarter increased by 20.8% year-on-year with strong demand for the iPhone 13, with shipments reaching 50.4 million units. After experiencing double-digit high growth in the first four quarters, Xiaomi's shipments fell by 4.6% in the third quarter to 44.3 million units, and Xiaomi occupied the third place with a market share of 13.4%, and the shipment volume was slightly different from Apple.
In terms of mobile phone shipments, Xiaomi and Apple are not separated, showing a pattern of you chasing me. However, the strength of the two is still hugely different, especially in terms of revenue and earning power, which can even be described as the difference between cloud and mud. In the third quarter of 2021, xiaomi's smartphone segment revenue was 47.8 billion yuan, a slight increase year-on-year. Compared to Apple, Apple's revenue from iPhones increased 47% year-over-year to $38.87 billion (about 247.5 billion yuan) in the quarter (fiscal year ended September 25, 2021). This revenue scale is equivalent to 5 millets.
And the ability to make money, the gap between Xiaomi and Apple is huge. In recent years, Apple has been the world's most profitable publicly traded company. In the case of the 2021 Fortune Global 500, Apple topped the list with a profit of $57.4 billion. At the current exchange rate, Apple earns more than 1 billion yuan per day, which is the real sense of daily gold. Behind this shows the competitiveness of the iPhone in the global market. As the world's best-selling high-end smartphone, it has long occupied the global high-end mobile phone market, making Apple a lot of money, with a market value of nearly 3 trillion US dollars, and the current market value is 2.94 trillion yuan (about 18.7 trillion yuan).
If you compare the GDP of various countries, Apple's market value is equivalent to the world's fifth-largest economy, after the United States, China, Japan, and Germany. Apple is the world's highest-market capitalization listed company, with a market capitalization equivalent to 49 millets, and the current market value of millet is 463.8 billion Hong Kong dollars (about $59.5 billion). In terms of earning power, it is even more different. In the third quarter of 2021, Xiaomi's profit during the period was 789 million yuan, down 83.8% year-on-year. Non-IFRS measured (adjusted net profit) was RMB5,176 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 25.4%.
Compared with Apple, net profit in the quarter (fiscal quarter ended September 25, 2021) increased by 62% year-on-year to $20.55 billion (about 130.8 billion yuan), which is 165 times the size of Xiaomi's profit during the period. Perhaps mobile phone shipments can surpass Apple, but the ability to make money is separated. For Apple, in the absence of Huawei, a strong competitor, the iPhone showed rapid growth in the domestic market. In the third quarter of 2021, Apple's domestic shipments increased by 49.7% year-on-year. Among them, the iPhone 13 series is the biggest driver of Apple's rapid growth.
Image from Apple's official website
Stabilize the basic disk of the mobile phone, the smart home has the most potential
The global mobile phone market has long since bid farewell to the period of high growth. According to IDC data, global smartphone shipments in the third quarter of 2021 fell by 6.7% year-on-year to 330 million units. In addition, the competition between mobile phone manufacturers is also stable, the remaining mobile phone players are Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, vivo and OPPO, the five major manufacturers occupy 70% of the global mobile phone market share.
Today, the most promising markets for consumer technology extend to the smart home. In the view of Yang Jianyong, senior consultant of the Internet of Things, smart homes and wearable devices have a market opportunity of 100 billion US dollars in the world. According to data previously released by IDC, the value of global smart products will reach $289.9 billion in 2021 and will exceed the $400 billion mark by 2025. It is worth mentioning that the bright-looking smart home market has attracted almost all mobile phone giants.
Among them, Apple, Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi are all core players. Prior to this, Xiaomi opened the mobile phone × AIoT dual strategic development. Due to the earlier layout, many years ago, through the cultivation of a huge ecological chain enterprises, and the construction of intelligent voice + AIoT platform ecology, so that it ranked among the first camp in the industry, is the domestic smart home market leader, but also the first domestic mobile phone manufacturers to harvest smart home dividends of the manufacturers.
In the third quarter of 2021, Xiaomi's revenue from IoT and consumer products was 20.9 billion yuan, an increase of 15.5% year-on-year. The proportion of total revenue increased to 26.8%; in the first three quarters of 2021, the total revenue of IoT and consumer products reached 59.9 billion yuan, an increase of 29% year-on-year. As of September 30, 2021, Xiaomi, AIoT platform has connected more than 400 million IoT devices, and the number of monthly active users of Xiaoai Classmate's artificial intelligence assistant has reached 105 million.
Despite the sluggish performance of Xiaomi mobile phones in the third quarter, the strong revenue performance of the AIoT segment has contributed to the overall revenue continued to maintain positive growth. In the third quarter of 2021, Xiaomi's smartphone revenue was 47.8 billion yuan, and in the third quarter of 2020, revenue was 47.6 billion yuan, a slight increase of 0.4% year-on-year. Revenue from IoT and consumer products increased by 15.5% year-on-year, making Xiaomi's total revenue increase by 8.2% year-on-year to 78.1 billion yuan in the quarter.
Overall, on the track of smart home, Xiaomi has gained a lot. The strong demand for smart TVs, smart air conditioners, sweeping robots, air purifiers and other smart devices has brought about steady growth in Xiaomi's IoT and consumer goods revenue. It is mainly due to the huge ecological chain enterprises that were actively cultivated many years ago. As of September 30, 2021, Xiaomi has invested in more than 360 companies. Among the huge investment enterprises, there are intelligent hardware manufacturers such as Huami, Yunmi, and Stone Technology.
It should be pointed out that there are many heavyweight players gathered on the smart home track, and competition has intensified. Xiaomi's AIoT revenue bid farewell to the era of high growth and faced growth difficulties. Especially in the domestic smart home market, there are not only mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi and Huawei, but also Internet giants such as Baidu and Ali, as well as home appliance giants such as Haier and Midea. At the same time, many competitive smart home innovation enterprises such as Oribo have emerged.
At last
As one of the earliest smart phone manufacturers to develop smart homes in China, as the smart home industry shows a warming trend, Xiaomi is expected to continue to break through in the direction of smart homes. According to IDC's Quarterly Tracking Report on China's Smart Home Device Market, China's smart home market shipments are expected to reach 230 million units this year, with a compound growth rate of 21.4% in the next five years, and the market shipments will be close to 540 million units by 2025. The steady growth of the smart home market is driven by the promotion of whole house smart solutions in the consumer market. Of course, in the tracking report, it is pointed out that China's whole house smart home solution market is still in the early stage of development, with broad growth space, which will create more opportunities for the development of the smart home market.
With the double improvement of China's residents' living standards and the awareness of the smart home market, the whole house intelligent solution will usher in a broad space for development, forming a useful supplement to the DIY market from three aspects: products, channels and users, and promoting the development of the smart home market. Players on this track will have the opportunity to reap the dividends of industry development.
Yang Jianyong, a Forbes China contributor, expresses views only on behalf of individuals. He won the NetEase 2020 Most Influential Award, dedicated to the in-depth interpretation of cutting-edge technologies such as the Internet of Things, cloud services and artificial intelligence, and his views and research strategies have been cited by many authoritative media and well-known enterprises.