At the Xiaomi 12 series conference at the end of 2021, Xiaomi Chairman Lei Jun officially put forward the goal of benchmarking Apple, which aroused public concern.
Recently, Xiaomi released the fourth quarter and annual financial report of 2021, which is also releasing many positive signals. From the perspective of revenue and profit, in the whole year of 2021, the total revenue of Xiaomi Group reached 328.3 billion yuan, an increase of 33.5% year-on-year; the adjusted net profit reached 22 billion yuan, an increase of 69.5% year-on-year.
From the perspective of the mobile phone business, its global shipments and market share also hit a record high. Shipments in 2021 reached 190 million units, up 30.0% year-on-year, and ranked third with a market share of 14.1%.
It is worth noting that the financial report disclosed that Xiaomi's global high-end smartphone shipments exceeded 24 million units in 2021, doubling the growth year-on-year.
Xiaomi, which benchmarks Apple, is catching up in the high-end market.
The volume and price of mobile phone business have risen in tandem
For smartphone manufacturers, shipments and average selling price (ASP) seem to be a contradiction. But in the fourth quarter and full year of 2021, Xiaomi achieved year-on-year growth on both indicators.
In the fourth quarter of 2021, Xiaomi's global smartphone shipments were 44.1 million units, an increase of 4.4% year-on-year; the ASP was 1143.6 yuan, a new high in multiple quarters.
For the full year, smartphone shipments were 190 million units, up 30.0% year-on-year. According to Canalys data, Xiaomi smartphone shipments ranked third in the world in 2021, with a market share of 14.1%, and its global shipments and market share hit a record high; at the same time, Xiaomi mobile PHONE ASP has achieved growth for 5 consecutive years, with a year-on-year increase of 5.6% in 2021.
The growth of ASP is inseparable from the optimization of the product structure of Xiaomi mobile phones and the performance in the high-end market.
According to the 2021 financial report, Xiaomi's global shipments of high-end smartphones exceeded 24 million units, doubling year-on-year, and the penetration rate increased from about 7% in 2020 to about 13% in 2021.
From the perspective of overseas markets, in 2021, Xiaomi's shipments of high-end smartphones priced at 300 euros or more abroad increased by more than 160% year-on-year, and the proportion of shipments increased by nearly 6 percentage points compared with 2020. According to the data of the research agency Canalys, in 2021, xiaomi's overseas high-end smartphone market with a retail price of 350 US dollars or more ranks third in the world in terms of shipments.
Xiaomi's good performance in the high-end market, the previously launched dual-brand strategy is one of the main supports.
Among them, the Redmi brand focuses on the mass market and keeps the basic disk; the Xiaomi brand sprints to the high-end market. At the same time, both brands are constantly improving their product lines and expanding their user base.
For example, the Redmi brand launched the K50 e-sports version on the K series, integrating e-sports elements, which also attracted a large number of gamers and achieved user circle breaking; the Xiaomi brand also launched a Xiaomi Civi for female users in 2021, as well as the dual-size Xiaomi 12 series, and the new users of these products accounted for more than 50%.
Soft and hard ecological synergy The user disk is expanded
Apple's strength, in addition to the iPhone business, there is also the synergy of software and service ecology. Xiaomi has also built its own unique ecosystem of mobile phoneSAIoT.
In 2019, Xiaomi first proposed the "mobile phone + AIoT" strategy, and a year later, it was upgraded to the "mobile phone XAIoT" strategy. Around the smartphone business, Xiaomi has built a huge AIoT intelligent life barrier.
While Xiaomi's smartphone business continues to grow, driven by the "mobile phone × AIoT" strategy, these users naturally flow into the IoT field. With the accumulation of the Potential Energy of the IoT category itself, a new user disk will be formed, which will directly drive the growth of the mobile phone user disk.
The financial report shows that in 2021, while Xiaomi's global shipments and market share hit a record high, it also led to the growth of the IoT business. At the end of 2021, the number of Connected IoT devices on Xiaomi's AIoT platform reached 434 million, an increase of 33.6% year-on-year, with 8.8 million people having five or more connected devices; the number of monthly active users of XiaoAi Students increased by 23.3% year-on-year to 107 million.
Xiaomi is also deeply cultivating the IoT product category. In 2021, Xiaomi's smart TV shipments reached 12.3 million units. Xiaomi TV ranked first in Chinese mainland for 3 consecutive years and ranked in the top five in the world. Xiaomi's annual shipments of smart air conditioners exceeded 2 million units worldwide, an increase of more than 70% year-on-year.
Driven by the "mobile phone XAIoT" strategy, Xiaomi's hardware users continue to grow, while providing commercial space for Internet monetization.
According to the financial report, in the whole year of 2021, Internet service revenue reached 28.2 billion yuan, an increase of 18.8% year-on-year; in December 2021, Xiaomi's global MIUI monthly active users reached 510 million, an increase of 28.4% year-on-year, a net increase of more than 100 million in a year. Among them Chinese mainland MIUI has nearly 130 million monthly active users, an increase of 18.9 million.
It is worth noting that the high-end of Xiaomi's smartphone business is also improving the monetization ability of Internet business.
For example, the increase in the proportion of high-end mobile phones has directly brought about the increase in pre-installation and search revenue; the increase in the proportion of overseas high-end mobile phones has also increased the growth of overseas Internet business. In the fourth quarter of 2021, the revenue of overseas Internet services increased by 79.5% year-on-year to 1.6 billion yuan.
Technology-based increase investment in research and development
For domestic manufacturers, to really catch up with Apple, the core must be in line with technology research and development, so as to make products comparable to Apple.
Previously, Lei Jun proposed to establish "technology-based" as one of the three iron laws of Xiaomi, and in 2021, Xiaomi also continued to increase investment in research and development.
According to the financial report, Xiaomi's R&D expenditure in the fourth quarter of 2021 was 3.9 billion yuan, an increase of 24.1% year-on-year; in 2021, Xiaomi's R&D expenditure reached 13.2 billion yuan, an increase of 42.3% year-on-year.
At the same time as announcing the benchmarking apple at the Xiaomi 12 series conference, Lei Jun also announced that Xiaomi's research and development investment in the next 5 years will be increased to 100 billion yuan, and hardcore technology will be bumped.
These R&D investments are producing self-developed technologies that have attracted market attention.
For example, the Xiaomi MIX Fold is equipped with a self-developed image chip surging C1, which took 2 years to invest 140 million yuan to improve the image shooting ability; the Xiaomi 12Pro is equipped with a self-developed surging P1 charging chip, which realizes the battery life of the same capacity by 1 hour; in 2021, Xiaomi also set up a robot laboratory and launched a bionic quadruped robot, and its all-thing focusing technology has also been applied to the Xiaomi 12 series.
In addition to capital investment, talent is also an important dimension of technology-oriented.
Xiaomi has distributed the million dollar award for three consecutive years, and in 2021, it also launched the "Young Engineer Incentive Program", with more than 700 young engineers receiving a total of 16.042 million shares. Most of these engineers are fighting in the front-line chip research and development, machine learning and algorithms, operating systems, image tuning and many other cutting-edge technical positions, playing an important role in Xiaomi's technological innovation.
summary
Looking back at the whole year of 2021, in the fluctuating environment of the global epidemic and tight chip supply, Xiaomi's various businesses have grown and handed over a good report card.
CICC research report pointed out that considering the problem of supply shortage is expected to gradually ease next year, it is expected that Xiaomi smartphone shipments will continue to grow in 2022, and its smartphone shipments are expected to be 200 million units/220 million units in 2022/2023.
Another noteworthy thing to pay attention to is the construction of cars. A few days ago, the industry reported that apple car team has been dissolved, and Xiaomi has brought good news in the 2021 financial report, as of now, the size of its car research and development team has exceeded 1,000 people, Xiaomi President Wang Xiang bluntly said that "progress exceeded expectations."
CICC said that it is optimistic about the development prospects of Xiaomi's car-making business and is expected to become a new performance growth point in the future.
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