Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

In 2020, a sudden epidemic disrupted the technology industry, and even MWC, the biggest event in the global communications industry at this time of year, announced an unprecedented suspension.

But none of this seems to change one thing: Xiaomi's commitment to the high end of the market.

On February 13, Lei Jun released the new generation of flagship Xiaomi 10 online. In the face of the starting price of 3999 yuan, Lei Jun said frankly that Xiaomi 10 should launch an impact on the high-end market.

However, friends who have long-term memories of the mobile phone industry must be no stranger to the topic of "high-end millet". Over the years, we have seen Xiaomi hit the high-end market many times, from self-developed chips to ceramic fuselage, these figures that have gone away in the market are full of the "high-end" Bibo that Xiaomi will never forget.

Even in the recent period of time, if you search for the words "Xiaomi" and "high-end" together, you will find that both Xiaomi cc9 and Xiaomi mix 4 were launched with the high-end market as a selling point. And Xiaomi 10 has become "the first high-end".

Why did Xiaomi repeatedly fire a starting gun at the high end of the market and then back to the starting line again and again? After this gunshot, can Xiaomi 10 fulfill this dream of Zizi again?

Of course, this topic will eventually be proved to the industry by the sales of Xiaomi 10, but at this point, we seem to be able to examine the repeated problems of Xiaomi 10's core and Xiaomi's high-end strategy from the perspective of industrial logic.

The crux of this question is how to accept a new product in the increasingly mature and closed high-end mobile phone market.

Roller Innovation: the Market Logic of High-end Mobile phones

If we want to analyze the high-end problem of Xiaomi, we must return to a background starting point, that is, what the high-end mobile phone market is like today. What kind of rules are being followed in that market, which was once labeled "business", "tuhao" and "selling kidneys"?

According to the TOP5 ranking of the global high-end mobile phone market in the third quarter of 2019 released by Counterpoint Research, Apple accounted for 52% of the global high-end mobile phone market in the third quarter of 2019, while Samsung and Huawei, which ranked second and third, accounted for 25% and 12% of the market, respectively. In other words, the three brands have taken 90% of the world's high-end mobile phone market share, and the flagship phones of the Big three have basically completed the "entrance closure" in this market range.

Back in the Chinese market, Huawei plus Glory accounted for more than 80% of China's high-end smartphone market during this period, forming a significant industrial inertia in the high-end market.

The question that must be considered in this situation is why Apple, Huawei and Samsung have fully occupied the global high-end market. The most obvious reason is that the technological strength of the three brands allows a large proportion of technological innovation to be completed on the flagship machine every year, which continues to bring breakthroughs to the market. Especially in Huawei and Samsung system, "flagship is breakthrough" has formed the industry inertia.

Although the supply chain of the mobile phone market is highly transparent, the self-developed technology system and the relatively upstream supply chain system still make the three major mobile phone manufacturers still have relatively sufficient product and technological experience innovation capabilities, so as to build technical barriers in the transparent industry chain. let high-end products have differentiation and persuasion.

This model may be called "roller innovation", that is, through the heavy accumulation of technology and the advantages of its own industrial chain, it continues to lead the technological iteration, so that the high-end mobile phone market has become the market with the fastest innovation and the largest range of innovation in the mobile phone market.

The most basic mode of communication between machine manufacturers and high-end users has been reflected in the market data. Whether it is Huawei's flagship leadership in imaging, AI and 5G, or the breakthrough in Glory Rui's technology strategy, it has conquered the high-end market with the range of innovation.

So Xiaomi, which wants to touch this market again, is used to the market rules of "rolling innovation"?

Xiaomi 10's "heap shoes"

Judging from Xiaomi 10 and Xiaomi 10 pro, it still seems that we can't equate the cool techs that Xiaomi has shown on PPT with its mass-produced products.

Soon after the launch of Xiaomi 10, some users and media thought that the first half of the event was a Chinese version of Snapdragon 865, and the second half was a photo exhibition of Samsung's 108 million-pixel camera. So the question is, where is Xiaomi?

Some readers may question, isn't Snapdragon 865, 100 million pixel quintuple, Samsung customized AMOLED not fragrant?

Incense is of course fragrant. The question is at which stage of the market you want to compare. The objective law of the mobile phone market is that if high-end supplier accessories "marry" to the middle and low end market, then it will form an excellent selling point. But at the top end of the market, accessories are top-notch enough, so the key question to convince the market is: beyond the similar sequence of accessories, what is used to convince buyers?

Just imagine, without this answer, the high-end market will become particularly "cheap". Another mobile phone manufacturer, also choose these accessories, and then price a yuan lower, this thing is done? If this path is possible, the global high-end mobile phone market should be full of princes, instead of today's three countries competing for hegemony, and Huawei and Glory will not rely on self-developed technology to achieve rapid growth and coverage, and become the only brands that have grown significantly against the trend when the market of China's mobile phone market has withered in 2019.

The mobile phone market at different prices is like a football match. If there is a Premier League star on your school team, there should be no pressure on all sides, but if you randomly gather a dozen Premier League players to play La Liga, there is no doubt that it will be a mess.

It is said that Xiaomi's high-end products rely on "stacking", which is not new in China's mobile phone circle. But if you compare the release time is very close, both belong to this year's flagship Samsung S20 series and Xiaomi 10 series, you will find that the hardware parameters look very similar, but the technological experience and functional innovation are very different. Behind this is the difference in engineering capability, self-research technology system, and leading supply chain innovation ability.

In other words, Xiaomi 10's feet are still those old shoes called "heap". And relying on the supply chain to stack high-end products is not an initiative Xiaomi completed in 2020. There have been many attempts on this path in 2015-16, but why did the high-end market return to the hands of top manufacturers and self-developed technologies?

If Xiaomi 10 doesn't follow this old path, it may take more thought.

The crux of the technical discourse and mode: the distance between Xiaomi and the high end

If the sum of high-end accessories is equal to the quota of the high-end market, then KRETA, 8848 should have been successful long ago. It is obvious that Xiaomi does not understand this truth, so why do we still see such heavy stacking marks in Xiaomi 10 and Xiaomi 10 pro?

This may not be because Xiaomi is obsessed with it, but the mode of supply chain and product innovation can not be solved for a while.

Xiaomi announced that it spent 1 billion on R & D in 2019, which is undoubtedly good for consumers and the industry as a whole. But the product model that Xiaomi has accumulated for a long time can not be changed quickly. Xiaomi's product model, whether software or hardware, is to leave its work to the last step as far as possible, and then drive down the purchase price of the supply chain as much as possible through the purchase volume.

This model established Xiaomi in the initial period of the smartphone, and also affected the millet in the Red Sea period of the market. When the market shrinks and the desire for filling purchases decreases, and we need to rely on the technical system and supply chain system to break homogenization, then what Xiaomi cut off in the first place must grow back one by one-- gaining meat is much more painful and much slower than cutting meat.

As a result, when self-research technology and the control of the hardware system constitute a decisive technical voice in the high-end market, the crux of Xiaomi's model will become a barrier. Neither the concept phone nor the Xiaomi 10, which has to be impulsive, has escaped the rut under this contradiction.

So, the distance between Xiaomi and high-end is how to achieve logical self-consistency in the high-end market discourse habits created by Apple, Huawei, Glory and Samsung, and how to make users forget technology again in a market that emphasizes technological innovation.

In the future, I hope to see Xiaomi with more amazing technical capabilities, and also hope to see a more diversified high-end mobile phone market. If Xiaomi 10 can let people see an unexpected plot.

But after the press conference led by Qualcomm and taken over by Samsung, the overall feeling is the same: adding lobster and abalone in Spicy Hot Pot doesn't necessarily change anything.

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