Earlier this year, Huawei's offline stores officially exhibited partner cars, and the first model was the Xilis SF5, which attracted great attention, and many professionals speculated that Huawei's move was intended to break the game. The latest news shows that the Xilis SF5 has been discontinued due to poor sales, which also brings thinking to the industry, is the mobile phone store really not suitable for selling cars?
In April 2021, at the Shanghai Smart Mobility Huawei Smart Selection Tasting Conference, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business, personally introduced the Xilis SF5 car, excitedly calling it "a pioneer in the consumer electronics industry and the automotive industry", and exhibited and sold at least in thousands of Huawei experience stores. As of May, the major media news is that the sales of the Cyris SF5 are hot, and the order in April needs to be postponed until June to be delivered, which seems to present a thriving new legend in the industry.
In just half a year, why did the Cyrus SF5 myth fall from the peak to the bottom? After in-depth understanding, I learned that there was no "myth" at all, and its sales in April were only 129 vehicles, 204 in May, and only 1926 vehicles in November. Such a dismal number, divided by Huawei's stores, can only sell less than one vehicle per store per month on average. After the news came in, some so-called professionals pointed out that perhaps mobile phone stores are not suitable for selling cars at all, so the market of Cyrus SF5 is dismal, but another brand does not look at it that way.
In November this year, Lu Weibing, a partner and senior vice president of Xiaomi Group, said in an interview with the media that Xiaomi Home is considering opening more and larger stores to prepare for the mass production of Xiaomi cars in 2024 in advance. At present, Xiaomi Home has been upgraded to version 4.0, with a store area of 600 square meters, which will attract users with a more high-end and more scenario-based experience and help the linkage of all scenes.
As of October 30, the 10,000th Xiaomi Home opened in Shenzhen Happy Coast, and the next day it welcomed the 10,001st store, and the opening speed was amazing. On the morning of December 31, Xiaomi Home Chongqing Joy City and Chongqing Jiangbei Airport T3 Terminal opened at the same time, which is also a part of Xiaomi's layout of new retail, so the two Xiaomi Homes are located in the most prosperous core business district, with a maximum area of about 700 square meters, one of the largest experience stores in the industry.
Such a huge footprint, in addition to reserving potential upgrade space for Xiaomi cars, is also practicing Lei Jun's plan to develop a sales and service experience store. Xiaomi is the first in the industry to propose a new model of online ordering and offline delivery, while enjoying 7 days of no reason return, 15 days of replacement, one-year in-store warranty, store repair and other services, and will also provide users with regular free film, disinfection and so on. In the display of products, users can also experience the Xiaomi 12 series of mobile phones in advance, as well as the products just released.
From these characteristics, it can be judged that Xiaomi should rely on the huge traffic brought by mobile phones and peripheral products to attract more customers to pay attention to automobiles and peripheral products, so as to ensure the comprehensive sales of various products. In this way, we can also see that the reason for the poor sales of the Xilix SF5 in Huawei stores is because Huawei mobile phones are heavily restricted, and without the huge flow of people as a support, the sales of cars cannot be talked about.
I hope that Huawei will get rid of the shackles as soon as possible, drive traffic with mobile phones and peripheral products, and support the sales and attention of cars like Xiaomi. It is foreseeable that in the future, mobile phones, smart homes, car travel and other products will open up a full-link sales model, Huawei and Xiaomi are in the exploration stage, hoping that the future can create a new experience for consumers, but also provide more convenience for consumers' lives.