On February 8, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said in an internal letter that starting from today, Xiaomi Group officially set up a high-end strategy working group, under the traction of the "three-year mobile phone sales world first" strategy, established a high-end strategic goal of comprehensively benchmarking the iPhone in product and experience, and winning the first domestic high-end mobile phone market share within three years.
According to Strategy Analytics, xiaomi ranked fifth in the domestic market in Q4 2021, behind Apple, OPPO, Honor, and vivo. From the perspective of the whole year of 2021, Xiaomi ranks third with a share of 15.5%, and has a 7% share difference with the first place vivo. It can be seen that for Xiaomi, it is not a small challenge to achieve the strategic goals of "global sales first" and "high-end" in three years.
The above data is only a microcosm of the Chinese market, but Wu Yiwen, a senior analyst at Strategy Analytics, said that the possibility of Xiaomi reaching the first global sales volume in three years only requires a lot of effort. If Xiaomi wants to hit the first position in global sales, first of all, it needs to make a bigger breakthrough in the domestic market; secondly, it needs to seize more shares in other overseas markets, such as in the Indian market to withstand the impact from realme, Samsung and Reliance Jio.
Speaking of the domestic high-end market, Wu Yiwen pointed out: "Xiaomi aims to win the first place in the domestic high-end mobile phone market share within three years, and the product is fully benchmarked against the iPhone, which means that Apple is the object of learning, while OPPO, vivo, and glory are the main competitors." ”
At present, xiaomi's high-end road is not smooth. Wu Yiwen said that sales of the Mi 12 series were less than expected, and the Mix Fold also cut prices sharply, in part because Xiaomi may be overconfident in pricing products. In fact, in the high-end of brand and channel construction, xiaomi still has room for progress.
It is worth noting that with the continuous investment of mobile phone brands such as Huawei and OPPO, the high-end mobile phone market has become a battlefield for many domestic mobile phone manufacturers to compete for strength. Recently, with the centralized release of new products from many head manufacturers, the market heat of folding screen products has once again been pushed to a peak. According to IDC data, the scale of folding screen products in the Chinese market in 2021 is about 1.5 million units, of which Xiaomi ranks third with a market share of 13.2%, and in terms of folding products, Xiaomi is in front of Huawei and Samsung, and the market share is very different.
In addition, the core components of the current flagship Android mobile phone are difficult to open the gap, how to create differentiated flagship features and unique ecological experience is also a challenge for Xiaomi.
In order to impact the high-end, Xiaomi has also made a lot of preparations, such as Xiaomi's self-developed chips, the core strategy of "mobile phone × AIoT" emphasized by Lei Jun, and high investment in research and development. According to the financial report data, Xiaomi's R&D investment reached 7.5 billion yuan in 2019, an increase of 30% year-on-year. In 2020, R&D investment was 9.31 billion yuan, an increase of 24% year-on-year. R&D investment in the first three quarters of 2021 reached 9.3 billion yuan, an increase of 51% year-on-year.
But as Lei Jun said, the high-end road cannot be achieved overnight, and it is necessary to maintain long-term strategic determination and continuous investment. For Xiaomi, achieving the high-end goal in three years may not be enough, but it is inevitable to achieve a breakthrough in the high-end market.
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Author: Zhu Wenfeng
Editor-in-Charge/Layout: Fan Fan
Review: Shen Qing
Producer: Liu Qicheng
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