Xiaomi is valued for 10 billion dollars and Xiaomi 3 is about to roll out
Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun has confirmed on Weibo (Chinese Twitter) that Xiaomi has just finished a new round of funding, in which Xiaomi is valued for 10 billion dollars. This means Xiaomi has become the 4th biggest internet company in China, following Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu. The Xiaomi President Lin Bin also said in an interview that Xiaomi will take big actions for oversea market, and in the near future a famous manager from international company will join Xiaomi.
Lin Bin also told Tencent Technology about its future strategies. It is said thatXiaomi will hold a media conference in September and announce the 3rd generation smartphone, which will result in a new round of surprise and applause. In addtion to the Hongmi (Red Rice) just rolled out not long ago,Xiaomi is on the highway now and is very ambitious. It is said that Xiaomi has set a goal of sales volume for 2013 - 20 million.
All these phenomenons leads to new questions: nowadays the war on CPU and Frequency in smartphones has been going weaker and weaker, the advantages and importance of the Weibo (Chinese Twitter) platform has playing a smaller role, how Xiaomi will continue to maitain a fans market, how Xiaomi will maitain high growth in sales volume.
Lin Bin said to Tencent Technology that 70% sales volume of Xiaomi goes through the official website, 30% through the channels of carriers. The rulesXiaomi applies is to build awesome products out of users' expectation through internet marketing and mouth word. Lin Bin further sited that the buyers that buy for many times reaches 42%.
Regarding to Xiaomi Hongmi (Red Rice), Hongmi went a tough way. As told by CEO Lei Jun, in order to prepare for mistake or whatever, there were 2 solutions for Hongmi (Red Rice). Last september, Xiaomi launched a project codenamed H1 aiming for Dual Core based Cortex A9. But it was given up this May, which result in loss of houndreds of million.
The final result for the big loss is the Xiaomi Hongmi (Red Rice) for 799 RMB, which hit the market in big shock and is reported that it makes no way left for others to go. Lin Bin said, Hongmi equips the highest frequency MT6589T Quad Core clocked at 1.5GHz, supports Dual Sim Dual Mode, which break the rule that 1000 phone is low end phone. (1000 phone means phones priced under 1000 RMB, 1000 is a price tag. Commented by Editor)
Xiaomi predicts that the huge sales volume will make Xiaomi live without earning from Hardware but from Software, which has come true. Lin Bin said that Xiaomi has sold 15 million smartphones till now, the average monthly income through MIUI has reached 20 million RMB, and Xiaomi TV box and other hardwares are also exploring bigger space, which could make MIUI brings 20 million dollars (NOT RMB) income monthly in 2014.
What must be noticed is that there is subtle change to the marketing strategies applied byXiaomi. Xiaomi worked with Tencent in this July for the first time, Xiaoim debut its Hongmi (Red Rice) on QQ Zone (Chinese Facebook), which made miracle: 7.45 million users joined the pre-sale program, and 100 thousand Hongmi (Red Rice) sold out in 90 seconds.
This is what just happend after Xiaomi worked with Sina Weibo (Chinese Twitter), and it is the second time Xiaomi tried social sales and it worked out perfect. Rumors also guessed that Xiaomi might have met bottleneck in marketting, because of this Xiaomi could probably spend money in ads marketing.
The files shows that Xiaomi did ads marketing for 2 times in the past. The first time was one month ads marketting on Fen Zhong Media (a Marketting Service Company in China) for 10 million RMB. In the spring of 2013, Xiaomi also did a 15-second ads marketting on Chinese Centeral TV for 10 million RMB. But comparing to Samsung and Huawei ect, the cost Xiaomi spent in marketing is nothing and needless to mention.
Lin Bin explained that Xiaomi is very carefully in ads marketting. Though the Weibo is playing a weak role now, Xiaomi is also trying another channels in marketting. One is to strengthen Xiaomi website, another one is explore on the third social network, like QQ Zone. As of now, the Xiaomi's QQ Zone has more than 10 million followers and the Xiaomi's WeChat has more than 2 million fans.
More than that, Xiaomi will also get 30% sales volume via the channels of carrier. Lin Bin said, Xiaomi worked with China Unicom and China TeleCom before, now it is working with China Mobile. Xiaomi will maintain a balance between its own sales channel and the carrier channels, even in its worst time, such as out of stock.
Lin Bin further analyzed that the online sales mode and offline sales mode has mixed up with each other: many checked the price online, but bought it offline; also many checked the price offline and bought it online. The smartphones sold by the carriers receive compensation from the carriers, the smartphones sold by Xiaomi website is naked smartphone (Chinese word,it means smartphone with official accessories but without any more extra accessories for gift or whatever). Both sales modes are not controdictory with each other.
A guy from Xiaomi is very confident about their future, he said to Tencent Technology," even Xiaomi sells 20 million smartphones this year, it just only 10% of the total marketshare. The market in China is so big, there is big space for Xiaomi to grow up, Xiaomi is not worried at all that Xiaomi smartphones do not sell. It is not urgent for Xiaomi to do ads marketing."
However, this is just a thought from insideXiaomi. As Xiaomi sells 20 million smartphones this year, especially it has entered the low-end market, which makes ZTE, Lenovo, Coolpad and Huawei fire on it, of course and those Shanzhai smartphones are among its enemies.
HowXiaomi makes a way out is amazingly noticeable.
Written by John Waterhouse
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