This time, Xiaomi riveted enough to impact the high-end market, and wants to compete with apple, a brother of high-end smartphones.
On the evening of December 28, Xiaomi held a new product launch conference to launch a new xiaomi digital flagship series, bringing three models of xiaomi 12 X, xiaomi 12, and mi 12 pro, along with MIUI13, mi watch S1 and other new products. In addition, Lei Jun also proposed at the press conference that the R&D investment in the next 5 years will increase from the original 50 billion yuan to 100 billion yuan, doubling.
At this press conference, Lei Jun once again fully demonstrated his ambition to impact Apple. He proposed to officially benchmark Apple and learn from Apple! So, xiaomi to benchmark apple, how far is the distance between the two? How long will it take for Xiaomi to surpass Apple?
Xiaomi Mi 12 hit the middle and high-end, is it reliable?
According to reports, Xiaomi 12 is Xiaomi's annual work, and its functions have been polished for many years. For the first time, the new product is equipped with a new generation of Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 flagship processor, which has important updates in the 4nm flagship process and the new CPU Armv9 architecture. Secondly, the 6.28-inch AMOLED screen, the width of 69.9 mm "gold size in one hand", 50 million extremely fast images, CyberFocus everything chasing focus, etc., are the core selling points of the launch of Xiaomi 12.
After the Xiaomi Mi 12, Lei Jun released the Xiaomi Mi 12 Pro. The exterior design is similar to the former, the Xiaomi Mi 12 Pro screen and body size are slightly larger, also equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 flagship processor and support for CyberFocus everything to focus technology. It is worth mentioning that the Xiaomi Mi 12 Pro also adopts a Sony IMX707 lens, which supports 2K resolution, and for the first time is equipped with Xiaomi's self-developed charging chip surging P1, which can achieve a 120W single-cell charging scheme.
For this new product, Lei Jun said that the Xiaomi Mi 12 is not a simple parameter stack configuration, but based on the feel and experience. At the press conference, Lei Jun introduced that in order to do a good job in small-size flagship machines, Xiaomi has many breakthroughs in key technologies, such as extremely fast imaging, all-things focusing, etc., covering the precipitation and accumulation of Xiaomi's technology for many years.
In terms of price, the Xiaomi Mi 12 starts at 3699 yuan, which is 300 yuan lower than the Xiaomi Mi 11, and the highest price is 4399 yuan; the xiaomi 12 Pro starts at 4699 yuan and the highest price is 5399 yuan. Compared with Apple, the pricing of Xiaomi Mi 12 is more people-friendly, and Xiaomi Mi 12 Pro is also impacting the mid-to-high-end market of more than 5,000 yuan upwards.
In this regard, Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, told reporters that from the perspective of the new products released by Xiaomi, including the breakthrough of the surging chip P1 and 120W single cell technology used this time, as well as the simultaneous compatibility of large batteries and fast charging of more than 100 watts, it is more exciting. He said, "From a personal point of view, it is still quite optimistic about Xiaomi."
Ding Shaojiang, the founder of Nail Technology, believes that from the pricing point of view, the Xiaomi 12 series reflects Xiaomi's consistent sincerity, and at the same time reflects Xiaomi's determination to impact the high-end. However, whether Xiaomi's mobile phone can succeed or not depends more importantly on the product itself, depending on the test of the market. He further pointed out that xiaomi mobile phone to transform and develop to the high-end, but also need a series of cooperation, such as brand culture, marketing methods, how to align with the world's first-class high-end mobile phone brands, is a problem worth considering.
Lei Jun proposed to officially benchmark Apple, what is the chance of surpassing Apple?
Behind the Xiaomi Mi 12 is Lei Jun's ambition to impact the high-end and then surpass Apple.
This ambition can be traced back 5 months earlier, Xiaomi's global mobile phone sales in the second quarter surpassed Apple for the first time and ranked second in the world, Lei Jun posted a post in the early morning to celebrate "this fantastic achievement", and then at the new machine conference of Xiaomi MIX4, proposed "three years to win the world's first!" ”
At that time, the meaning of this slogan and Apple confrontation was still slightly obscure. After the global mobile phone sales in the third quarter were once again surpassed by Apple, at this press conference, Lei Jun officially proposed to the public that he decided to clearly propose to benchmark Apple in terms of product and experience, learn from Apple, and surpass Apple step by step in the next period of time.
"After officially proposing to benchmark Apple, I think this would have been a good goal, but I still saw a lot of people in the comment area sneering, in fact, I think domestic mobile phones should have such courage, why not compare?" Lei Jun said.
Taking this opportunity, Lei Jun also announced at the press conference that in the next five years, R & D investment will increase from the original 50 billion yuan to 100 billion yuan, double the original plan, hardcore technology, "I think Xiaomi has a bigger dream." ”
Can this dream come true? How far away is Xiaomi from Apple? Take a look at the earnings data.
Apple, which is regarded as a benchmarking object, achieved net revenue of $81.434 billion in the second quarter of 2021, obtained net income of $21.744 billion, and achieved a gross profit margin of 36.0% on products. Among them, the net revenue of Greater China was US$14.762 billion, an increase of 58% year-on-year. In terms of mobile phones, iPhone revenue increased by 49.78% year-on-year to $39.57 billion.
Xiaomi's third quarter 2021 financial report shows that it achieved revenue of 78.06 billion yuan, an increase of 8.2% year-on-year; adjusted net profit of 5.2 billion yuan, an increase of 25.4% year-on-year. In the smartphone business, Xiaomi's revenue for the quarter was 47.8 billion yuan, with a gross profit margin of 12.8%, an increase of 4.4% year-on-year.
Obviously, there is still a big gap between Xiaomi and Apple in terms of performance. However, from the perspective of R & D investment, some experts expressed optimism. Jiang Han believes that with the development of the entire industry, research and development has become the driving force for the long-term sustainable development of the technology industry, the higher the investment often means the greater the potential for development, and Xiaomi's large-scale research and development investment also represents its confidence. Jiang Han pointed out that from the perspective of the market, there is a gap between millet and apple, but the gap is not large, in the context of xiaomi's entire industrial chain and ecosystem is relatively perfect, to reach a level similar to apple, time is worth looking forward to.
Major General Ding also believes that the 100 billion yuan of research and development investment reflects Xiaomi's confidence and determination to transform into a world-class technology company. But at present, the gap between Xiaomi mobile phones and Apple mobile phones is mainly the two ends of the "smile curve" - one end is the brand, and the other end is the gap in technology. From the perspective of sales, Xiaomi surpassing Apple should be a high probability event, but it will take a long time to surpass Apple at the brand and technical levels. He pointed out that "the stage of transcendence is not really transcendence, which is not only a problem for Xiaomi, but also a problem faced by all smartphone companies in China."
How long Xiaomi will surpass Apple in the future is still an unknown time. And Xiaomi's war drum against Apple has just been beaten.
Aoyi news reporter Feng Xiaohui