Author: Lao Xie
Xiaomi was spat on by Yu Dazu again!
On the evening of February 15, several videos of Huawei Yu Chengdong's internal speeches began to circulate on major platforms, in which Yu Chengdong said that he had taken Honor CEO Zhao Ming to breakfast with Lei Jun and Lu Weibing at the Shenzhen Kapok Hotel in March 2019.
At that time, Lei Jun complained to it that Huawei's momentum was too strong, Xiaomi was falling every quarter every month, and according to this trend, Xiaomi was afraid to close its doors by April 2020.
However, things are uncertain, and just two months later, Huawei was added to the entity list by the United States, and the global supply chain was cut off in an instant. Yu Chengdong believes that Huawei has been subjected to multiple rounds of sanctions is equivalent to saving Xiaomi, and after four rounds of sanctions, Xiaomi has completely "salted the fish".
I don't know if Lei Jun will be angry after hearing these words, and then shout out the famous words of "friends are stupid X" again at the next press conference. Regardless of whether Yu Dazui's statement is reliable, what I want to say today is that Xiaomi's days in 2022 will most likely be very difficult.
01
The forced high-end was unsuccessful
As early as 2020, Xiaomi said that it should be high-end.
However, the DNA in Xiaomi's bones seems to be incompatible with high-end. In November 2020, Xiaomi's then-executive Wang Wei said in public, "There are more young people who use Xiaomi mobile phones, why?" We xiaomi believe that in the future of the world, those who have to get the silk will win the world, must be the world of young people. Of course, in the future, young people will not be dicks, so we will make high-end machines."
This round of speech not only successfully allowed Wang Wei to "get off the class" himself, but also made Xiaomi's high-end road questionable.
In the first half of 2021, Xiaomi returned to the second place in the world's smart phones, and Huawei is still mired in the quagmire, Xiaomi once again saw the opportunity of high-end.
At the new product launch of Xiaomi 12, Xiaomi shouted out the slogan of benchmarking Apple and learning from Apple. On February 8 this year, Lei Jun said at the Xiaomi high-end strategy seminar that Xiaomi products and experiences should be fully benchmarked against the iPhone, and won the first place in the domestic high-end mobile phone market share within three years.
Confidence is a good thing, but now it seems that forced high-end is eating back millet.
During the Spring Festival, Lei Jun posted a Weibo post: "Have you had a wonderful life in the past year?" Under this Weibo, half of the users are scolding xiaomi 11 quality problems, and the other half are spitting on xiaomi's stock price.
As a blockbuster product that was once pinned on hope, the overturning of xiaomi mi 11 has become a pain for rice noodles. Fire Dragon 888, burning WiFi, black screen, camera failure, inexplicable caton and other problems make Xiaomi 11 the center of the whirlpool, at present, Sina Black Cat complaints about Xiaomi 11 content as high as 11647.
After Xiaomi 11 encountered serious quality problems, not to mention users, I am afraid that even Xiaomi itself can not believe its rhetoric against Apple, right?
The most direct consequence of product quality problems is the double decline in mobile phone sales and stock prices.
In the global market, Xiaomi was once again overtaken by Apple and fell back to third. In China, xiaomi sales can only rank fifth. The main business is unfavorable, so that Xiaomi's stock price fell again. At present, Xiaomi's stock price is only HK$16.6, compared with HK$35.9 in January 2021, Xiaomi's stock price has fallen by more than 50%.
02
Car building to drag down Xiaomi ecology?
For Xiaomi, its revenue mainly comes from the smartphone business and the Xiaomi ecosystem, while the biggest expenditure is on its car-making plan.
Data show that as of the end of 2020, xiaomi cash balance on the account of about 108 billion yuan, these money are in the mobile phone business, IoT and life consumer products business, earned hard-earned money, originally, if these cash into chip and mobile phone business research and development, millet's high-end road can go more smoothly, however, millet decided to invest money into the "cash black hole" - to build a car.
The car-making business requires a lot of capital investment, which will undoubtedly squeeze Xiaomi's research and development investment in the mobile phone business. It is difficult to say whether the quality problems of Xiaomi Mi 11 are directly related to its limited investment in research and development.
Building a car has obviously become a poison wrapped in honey. Whether it is Jia Yueting or Xu Jiayin, they are all dragged down by this business.
For Xiaomi, perhaps its "darkest hour" has not yet arrived. At present, another major source of income for Xiaomi, the Xiaomi ecological chain business, has also begun to show hidden worries. This is likely to make Xiaomi fall into the dilemma of "starting a business and spending all its budget in the middle".
At present, many companies on the xiaomi ecological chain have begun the process of "de-milletization", the reason is that the "exploitation" from millet is too fierce, resulting in its gross profit being too low.
Xiaomi, which has always emphasized cost performance, has announced that its hardware gross profit margin is not higher than 5%, and companies in the Xiaomi ecological chain must also follow such a value system.
From 2016 to 2018, the proportion of Millet channels in its main business income fell from 100% to 43.01%; at the same time, the gross profit margin of Stone Technology rose from 19.21% to 28.79%. After the listing, Stone Technology accelerated its "de-milletization", and its gross profit margin increased from 36.12% in 2019 to 61.32% in 2020.
Fengmi Technology has cooperated with Xiaomi since 2017, and its laser TV revenue in 2017 mainly came from Xiaomi, accounting for 95.43%, which made the gross profit margin of the business only 19.79%; in 2018, the proportion of Xiaomi's contribution revenue fell to 80.38%, and the overall gross profit margin of the business rose to 26.5%.
"If you have a disease in your heart, you will be afraid of it." For Xiaomi, whether it is car manufacturing, smart phones, or Xiaomi's ecological chain business, the problem has just emerged, but if it is not adjusted in time, Xiaomi may be difficult to achieve its desired goals in 2024.
For Xiaomi, there are two more very unfriendly messages.
First, Xiaomi fell into the layoff storm, according to media reports, Xiaomi in the 2021 performance score, forced all departments must have 10% of the employee performance of C, and twice performance of C, will be dissuaded. This is considered to be Xiaomi laying off employees in disguise. In response to the rumors of layoffs, Xiaomi denied it to the media.
Second, Yu Chengdong said in his internal speech that Huawei has designed a revolutionary folding screen product with an industry crushing effect, and after solving the chip production problem, Huawei's mobile phone business will return to the king.
Internal worries are gradually revealed, external troubles have not stopped, Xiaomi's 2022, obviously not good!