Millet mobile phone industry chain guess: or into e-commerce platform

“This time, the outside world put forward various questions on Xiaomi’s mobile phone, but I don’t think any of these issues have anything to say about the idea.” On the day of the September 30 interview with reporters, Lei Jun had just returned from Dunhuang. He said that in the desert area of ​​Dunhuang, he discussed with Xue Manzi, Li Kaifu and other friends about how to practice "not angry".

Since the first two months after the first press conference on August 16th, Xiao Jun and his Xiaomi cell phone have been highly concerned that this concern has exceeded the expectations of Lei Jun and his colleagues. The "glare" under the spotlight made Lei Jun sensitive to every different sound. He sometimes felt very aggrieved.

In his view, Xiaomi's biggest challenge now is "How do three genes merge better." The so-called "three genes" are based on Lei Jun's "triathlon standards" for a successful company in the mobile Internet era: software, hardware, and mobile Internet are highly matched; and this combination must be able to The highest level of fusion.

The only company that possesses this "Triathlon" gene and has achieved success is Apple. With Steve Jobs as a master of technology, application and commerce. Previously, the media referred to Lei Jun as "Reebs", and its investors also expected Xiaomi to make a company like Apple, but also there are net theory that Lei Jun's move in the millet mobile press conference to illustrate its "like" Apple and Jobs.

“Jobs is an iconic figure, and many companies around the world are learning Apple. We learn a lot from him, but not the details of the gossip of 'talking gestures' in the outside world. At the press conference, we carefully studied Apple. The PPT is," Lei Jun said.

At that time, in the face of the fans' press conference, Lei Jun launched the Xiaomi mobile phone. Since then, the Xiaomi mobile phone has been opened for booking on September 5th. Within only 34 hours, Xiaomi's official website has booked more than 300,000 units. This surprise made Lei Jun "scared." For this young company established for more than a year and involved in the mobile phone industry, the surprise was a bit overweight: After all, millet is not only in the team running-in, the running-in of suppliers, but also the supply chain grooming in the manufacturing field. Companies need time.

Xiaomi, the founder team in the fall of 2010, is a company with seven co-founders. This is also rare in the history of Chinese Internet companies. From the perspective of the composition of the top team, the configuration in the field of hardware, software and mobile Internet is nearly balanced, but the thinking and communication methods of various industries are also different. If the communication and integration are good, the resources can be complementary, otherwise it will be It becomes very costly to communicate.

Since its establishment, Xiaomi has launched products such as Michao, MIUI operating system, and Xiaomi mobile phone. The company is also under construction. In Lei Jun’s strategy map, the Xiaomi series now hit the “third and fourth cards”. There are still many cards left in this industry chain.

Indeed, from the point of view of industry opportunities, Xiaomi has indeed chosen a “crater” with an industry with explosive potential. However, the biggest challenge left by the crater competition is that time is too limited. Whether it is past accumulation, current integration or future resource allocation, this young company must compete at a speed that is faster than its competitors.

It is not impossible to win.

The Fusion of Triathlon

"I can't say that the problem of integration has been completely solved, but it is very difficult to get together the top talents in these three areas and we still work hard."

"21st Century": For more than a month, the outside world has been very concerned about Xiaomi. There are also many different opinions. What do you think of yourself?

Lei Jun: I don't think any of the current views are as important as they are. For example, there is a user's view of the camera function, this can be improved; as the outside world said, "fall paint door", and do not say that many of the details of this argument itself is defective, even if there is a very small drop of paint, these All of them can be improved. Our commemorative version of this project is a testing machine. It is meant to allow users to provide comments and opinions. This way, products can be put on the line and quality can be made more stable. And users of the Commemorative Edition can directly change the official version of the mobile phone for free.

During this period, I feel that the most grievance is that I cannot explain it in a variety of ways.

There is a time lag between the hardware update cycle and Internet's word-of-mouth marketing. You must get the product and speak with the product. This time difference is what we have to learn to adapt to.

From my point of view, I think that the most important challenge for Xiaomi is the integration, from the founder team to the business team, from the software, hardware and internet industry background, how to establish a more benign communication method together, how to make interlaced Colleagues better understand each other and how to match the development rhythms of various industries.

There are seven founders of millet, which counts more in the startup company. As the main sponsor, my main job is to integrate well, allocate resources, find the right people, and create a set of cooperation methods that we all adapt to. .

So far, I can't say that the problem of integration has been completely solved, but it is very difficult to get together the top talents in these three fields and everyone is still working hard; we have classes in six days a week and everyone's time is definitely longer than before. There are more professional managers.

"21st Century": Xiaomi's various business segments are basically full bloom at the same time, but for a startup company, the allocation of resources is limited. Under a company's platform, how to establish a system of resource allocation and coordination of entrepreneurship?

Lei Jun: After solving the problem of “trust or not believe” among investors and teams, the real state of entrepreneurship comes after the “miao chat” goes online and it enters the stage of “a real pull away”: the chat in the IM section and the OS platform. MIUI system, hardware products, millet phone, three main business began to race across the board.

Of course, the development rhythm, industry characteristics, way of doing things, and ecological system of each business unit are not the same. So now we are positioning each business unit and we hope that they can maintain their independence and survive independently in their respective markets. Business units can support each other and open up to each other, but at the same time they belong to a corporate platform. We will basically adopt a similar division system.

"Miume" Industry Chain Conjecture

"Every product of today is in our original plan and prediction. The only change is that it is getting up faster than originally expected."

"21st Century": Xiaomi's business is very long, and Apple's many business chains have similarities, then, in the industry category, Xiaomi in the end is a company?

Lei Jun: In general, Xiaomi is an Internet company. Xiaomi mobile phone is one of our products. Even if it is a mobile phone, we use the Internet as a mobile phone. Other products, such as Michao and MIUI, including the e-commerce area that we may do later, belong to the Internet.

"21st Century": Michao is Xiaomi's first product and soon became popular in the market, but now the competition is fierce. For the future of rice chat?

Lei Jun: Rice is under pressure but I don't think that Rice can't lose it. We hope that the chat can be operated independently like the business division, and it can survive in the independent market. The new IM market created by Mi Chat has a certain market identity basis, but stability and dependability still take time. For example, how to better integrate rice chat and text messaging; whether it can support 4-5 links at the same time? If the network is bad, can you quickly change the network? Rice talks about this market, there are still many stories to tell.

"21st Century": Is the MIUI operating system also independent?

Lei Jun: After MIUI fully supports Xiaomi's mobile phone, it may bring several negative effects. First, does MIUI support other mobile phone efforts to weaken? Secondly, will other mobile phones be willing to use MIUI? Will the peers become the prostitutes? Third, if MIUI is put into Xiaomi's mobile phone system, will its own market potential weaken?

We hope MIUI will also be an independent business. Being tied to a mobile phone is actually not good for its own development, and it has limited the development space that it should have. Therefore, my goal for MIUI is to support as many other mobile phones as possible, and at the same time, set up a special group. Support millet phone.

"21st Century": Did Xiaomi official website go to e-commerce? Does the e-commerce platform have sufficient product content support?

Lei Jun: Apple's official website Apple Store market is a lot of people who study Apple have ignored. If millet phones are sold through their own e-commerce platforms, this amount is considerable.

In the supply, in addition to mobile phones, accessories are also a big market, I think the mobile phone accessories market is there, the key is how to do a good job accessories, do people like to use, and the service is done quite satisfactory.

"Crater" contest

"My attitude is: to make your own ability to the best, to do their best products."

"21st Century": In any case, millet phone or a mobile phone, the price is very generous. How much is the cost of mobile phones? Don't make money?

Lei Jun: On the issue of the cost of this phone, it was once calculated that the cost of 1,200 yuan. We got that message and studied it carefully. We found it to be quite wrong: First, this calculation is not about the configuration of Xiaomi's mobile phone, but about the configuration of other mobile phones. The calculator hasn't figured out whether to use single or dual cores. The difference between the two is great.

Second, the price of other parts is also very wrong. Some of the prices are the original prices of foreign markets, but these are not included in the import tax and the difference. There are also some factors that will be adjusted. First, the cost of raw materials is not the same as the purchase price. This will be dynamic.

Third, various other taxes and fees have not yet been calculated out. One-time supplier R&D costs, 3G patent fees, and other royalties paid in terms of sales, screens, chips, etc. These will all be calculated in the end.

To be honest, there are several key indicators as to how much the cost is. There are no finished products. One is the good product rate, and the other is the replacement rate; both of them take some time to be calculated. The yield rate will not be known until after all the products have finished running on the production line.

The return rate has to wait until after the official sales. I estimate that in about three months, it should be obvious. But our psychological expectation, the hardware aspect should probably not lose money;

In terms of pricing, we referenced Taobao’s top ten mobile phone sales at the time. There were only 2,000 or more mobile phones. The only one was the iphone, and the others were all under 2,000. Therefore, we set the price of RMB 1999 and turned the fever machine into a public machine. . Anyway, our pricing is the lowest in the same configuration.

"21st Century": Google, Microsoft, Alibaba and others are all making mobile phones. Xiaomi also claims to use the "Internet way to make mobile phones." Where are the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages?

Lei Jun: To be honest, I am a mobile phone enthusiast, how to make mobile phones, I certainly do not know Zhou Guangping (co-founder of millet, MOTO Ming mobile phone designers). I am more from a user point of view, to find the demand: what kind of mobile phone users need in the end, what needs more care?

Another one is that the culture of the Internet is about transparency and participation. Therefore, at the beginning of Xiaomi mobile phone, we had 500,000 fans involved in the design. This is also a precedent in the history of mobile phones, allowing users to make decisions and meet the needs of users.

I hope we can do a sincere product. What is sincerity? One is to respect and meet the needs of users, and to be consumer-oriented; second, to improve with problems. I am a small businessman and want to be a sincere product.

"21st Century": But mobile phone manufacturing is a very complicated and sophisticated industry. As a novice, Xiaomi’s challenge is not small. What do you see?

Lei Jun: This point not only you will ask, our investors are asking, when we were financing, they asked: Do you know Foxconn it? Do you know suppliers? What do you do? At that time we did not know, but now it is my partner. The potential of the industry chain is more than expected.

But what is the difficulty? The hardware supply chain is not as simple as the way we go to the mall to buy things. Its difficulty is highly planned and process-oriented. A mobile phone has more than 800 parts. There are several suppliers behind each part. How to configure these supply chains? High-end components need to be customized in advance. The establishment of this set of supply chain processes takes time and refinement.

In terms of production, we hope that we can meet existing orders and ensure the quality of our products. Our investors' demand for our Xiaomi mobile phone hopes that we will not become fanatic and do not sell too much.

How much sales can we meet in the fourth quarter? This is a highly concerned secret. I don't dare to say any specific figures. In fact, we are right every day. However, this level of production is the biggest pressure this year. In the fourth quarter, it will take a good step and lay the foundation.

"21st Century": How do you allocate your personal time and energy between Xiaomi, Jinshan, and investment?

Lei Jun: Xiaomi’s time is definitely the most. After all, I’m the founder and the CEO. I’m the chairman of Jinshan. For the chairman, the most important thing is to find a suitable CEO. As for investment, it is a hobby. I am considering forming a dedicated team to take care of it.