On March 30, 2021, Lei Jun announced at the Xiaomi press conference that "Xiaomi officially entered the smart electric vehicle industry". At the press conference, Lei Jun said: Based on the actual situation of Xiaomi, the company plans to invest 10 billion US dollars (about 65.7 billion yuan) in the next 10 years into the smart electric vehicle business, with the first investment of 10 billion yuan. Xiaomi Group decided to develop the smart electric vehicle project in the form of a wholly-owned enterprise, and yes, "Rebbs" wants to become "Resk".
Why should Lei Jun make a desperate bet and devote himself to the automotive industry
The scale of the automotive industry is incomparable to the mobile phone industry, the global smartphone market size is 500 billion US dollars, and the size of the automotive market is 10 trillion US dollars, a difference of 20 times, such a huge scale has a broader space for development. In 2013, Lei Jun met with Musk, when Xiaomi was valued at $10 billion, Tesla's market value was $19.4 billion, and 9 years later, Tesla's market value was $610 billion, and Xiaomi announced that the stock price rose by 2.5% after making the car, with a market value of 660 billion Hong Kong dollars, and the difference in market value between the two was nearly 8 times. Obviously, under the premise that both sides have achieved good development, the intelligent automotive industry is a better and bigger outlet.
In 2020, in the context of a 20% decline in sales in the global auto market, new energy electric vehicles bucked the trend and increased by 41%. This momentum will continue, and it is not known how long it will last, but it can show that the wind direction of smart cars is not wrong.
What are the advantages and conditions of Xiaomi car manufacturing
Xiaomi has a large user base and high brand recognition. Mobile phone is the most intimate personal item of every young person, Xiaomi mobile phone users are numerous, in 2021 China's smartphone market share Xiaomi accounted for 15%, ranking fourth among all mobile phone manufacturers. These users deal with Xiaomi's MIUI every day, and Xiaomi's brand awareness is already very high.
Mobile phone profit pressure is low, Xiaomi mobile phone cost-effective. Because xiaomi mobile phone users have more, xiaomi can better sell all kinds of products in its ecological chain, those large and small home appliances, including financial products like its Tianxing Digital Department. The same is true for Xiaomi cars, which are also large pieces of intimate companionship, and profits can be made very low in pursuit of higher market share. The purpose is also to build or market ready-made ecological chain products around cars, of course, there may be financial products with larger amounts.
All other smart car manufacturers do not have such a large user base, nor do they have such a rich ecological chain, and they have to rely on selling cars to make a profit. Therefore, the most core competitiveness of Xiaomi cars is still the price.
Xiaomi has a mature successful model in mobile phones and surrounding industries, and copying it to the smart automotive industry is theoretically feasible.
Xiaomi has plenty of cash, which is mentioned at the beginning of the article.
Luo Baojun, general manager of Xiaomi Beijing-Tianjin Branch, revealed that Xiaomi Automobile will develop the first batch of engineering prototypes in the third quarter of 2022. The first phase will be the development of four products, including two A+ class models and two B class models.
What are the difficulties in transforming Rebbs into Resk?
In 2021, Xiaomi has a market share of 15% and Apple has a market share of 16%, and the two sides are on a par, and there is no problem in calling Lei Jun "Rebus" in the mobile phone industry. In the smart automotive industry, it is difficult for Xiaomi to catch up with Tesla's market share.
Value for money is also not good. In the mobile phone industry, Apple's single-player profit is very high, leaving sufficient living space for Xiaomi, which is the main cost-effective, and the two compete in dislocation or non-competition. And Tesla's gameplay is obviously different from Apple's, the early introduction of the price of nearly one million Model X and Model S, to establish a luxury brand image, and then began to build domestic factories to launch about 30-400,000 Model 3 and Model Y, price reduction sinking, swallowing the market, even compared with the models of new forces of independent brand car manufacturing, there are good cost performance. Compared with Tesla, Xiaomi car is afraid that the cost performance cannot open too big a gap, unless the two do not compete at the same price.
The pace of cross-border car manufacturing is too large, and the autonomous driving of other new car-making forces is about to mature. Relatively speaking, Huawei is more cautious, and Huawei is currently only a Tier1 supplier of vehicle autonomous driving, providing soft and hard integrated automatic driving solutions. Weilai NOP, Xiaopeng's NGP, Tesla's Autopilot autopilot technology is about to mature, as the most important core of smart cars, Xiaomi cars must rush to catch up, this aspect of the time left for Xiaomi will not be too much.
Write at the end
Those who pay attention to the science and technology circle know that Xiaomi Lei Jun and Xiaopeng Automobile He Xiaopeng have a very good personal relationship, Xiaomi Group is also a strategic investment partner of Xiaopeng Automobile, and Lei Jun is also one of the founders of Weilai Automobile, Xiaomi and BAIC Group have also signed strategic cooperation in intelligent driving, and Lei Jun is no newbie in smart cars. At present, the development of Xiaopeng Automobile and Weilai Automobile is quite strong in the new forces of car manufacturing, and it is estimated that there will be multi-faceted assistance from them in the process of xiaomi car manufacturing.