Magical millet phone

On August 16th, 2012, Xiaomi Technology held a new product launch in Beijing 798. When Xiaomi Mobile's 2nd generation 1999 yuan price appeared on the big screen, numerous rice noodles on the scene broke out as religious believers screamed with enthusiasm.

In the Baidu Billboard mobile phone brand column, Xiaomi mobile phone is the only domestic mobile phone brand that entered the top five. The mad pursuit of millions of fans made Xiaomi’s mobile phone in the forefront of the list of intelligent machines concerned. It can be said that launching Xiaomi’s mobile phone for only one year has created a miracle.

The mention of Xiaomi's mobile phone, which has come to people's minds, must be extremely cost-effective. High-end hardware configuration, humanized interactive experience, the price of 1999 yuan can not refuse the temptation of millet. However, if Xiaomi alone will not achieve such great success, what makes Xiaomi so magical.

Some people say that Xiaomi’s profitability is based on the futures model created by the boss Lei Jun. Millet is worthless when the product is just released and when there is a lot of losses. When the cost is reduced and profitable, millet is added to the supply to make a profit. I do not agree with this point of view, because although this "futures" model does make Xiaomi reduce the "loss" in the initial period, it is very difficult to rely on this model to achieve higher profits. Moreover, Xiaomi also wants to build quickly. From a huge fan base.

Lei Jun said that he is using the idea of ​​the Internet to make mobile phones, first traffic, and then consider profit. In fact, I think Lei Jun is operating the mobile phone as an "electronic business." First of all, Xiaomi’s mobile phone is only sold through the official website. The e-commerce model makes the cost of sales channels very low, while the channel cost is not acceptable for other mobile phone brands. Because of this, the price is the same. Next, if the profits of other brands of mobile phones, Xiaomi's profits must have been considerable.

Now China's big e-commerce companies are fighting price wars, and fierce competition has caused them to lose money. And I think that the core of e-commerce's real competition is the brand, because the brand can bring a premium. Only by building a brand can we get everyone out of the low-end competition whirlwind of price war. Xiaomi has apparently established a successful e-commerce brand, as evidenced by millions of fanatical rice flours. In the case of a successful brand culture, even if selling mobile phones does not make money, a good profit can be obtained by selling other series of peripheral products such as mobile phone cases, dolls, and batteries.

Second, Xiaomi’s success lies in its effective use of social media. The advantages of social media in accuracy, interactivity and public opinion supervision and organizational cost reduction are obvious. Take Xiaomi's press conference on August 16. Although there is no report support from the major IT media, the Xiaomi generation released by Xiaomi's official Weibo has reduced its price to 1299 yuan and the product introduction microblogging released on the day of the conference has won thousands or even Tens of thousands of forwardings, on the 16th of August, Xiaomi’s mobile phones were ranked in the forefront of hot topics on Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo. Millet official microblogging information coverage even broader than the major IT media, and millet microblogging publish information costs almost zero, obviously much more cost-effective than in the major IT media. According to a report issued by a third-party consulting agency, the information forwarded by friends on Weibo is much more influential to users than the news they see in the media.

It can be seen that the marketing cost of Xiaomi's mobile phone is very low. Everybody can make a contrast with traditional mobile phone manufacturer BBK. It is reported that the advertising cost of BBK mobile phone business is as high as 800 million per year! Such high advertising costs must finally be added to the price of mobile phones.

Regardless of whether Xiaomi’s success is a “myth” or a “liar”, it has already created a mobile phone whirlwind on the Chinese Internet. Major Internet companies are not far behind, either launching their own-brand mobile phones or cooperating with mobile phone manufacturers to launch “special supplies. "The machine", the price of smart phones has also been quickly pulled down. Finally, I hope Xiaomi Mobile will pay more attention to product quality in the future development and achieve greater success. At least, from the hardware configuration and price point of view, Xiaomi 2 is indeed a “bunker,” isn't it?