MIUI used to be a magic weapon for Xiaomi, and it also brought the earliest fans to Xiaomi's mobile phone. MIUI solves the localization problem well, making the Android system easier to use, and its built-in functions also allow users to install fewer apps.
When domestic mobile phone manufacturers followed Xiaomi's footsteps and launched their own customized UI, Xiaomi made new explorations in MIUI. By accessing more Internet services, MIUI has become an important traffic portal. Users can charge phone bills and buy e-books in MIUI, and a brand-new ecosystem is presented to people.
In the heyday of Xiaomi, Lei Jun summed up the Xiaomi model with "triathlon": hardware, software and Internet services. As an important carrier of software and Xiaomi Internet service, MIUI occupies two of Xiaomi's "triathlon", and its important position is self-evident.
However, MIUI's comments turned sharply after the introduction of advertisements. At the beginning of this year, many built-in system applications in MIUI, including SMS, calendar, weather and music, were added to advertisements, and some advertisements also involved financial transactions and pornographic content. For a time, how to delete MIUI advertisements has become the focus of Xiaomi users.
Regardless of whether the rumors are true or false, MIUI has fallen from Xiaomi's initial core competitiveness to the current nickname "ADUI", and unscrupulous advertising is hard to blame.
Hardware: Success is Qualcomm, and failure is Qualcomm.
Now, the success or failure of Xiaomi's mobile phone products has been repeated in the past dynasties, and it is not difficult to see that Xiaomi's struggle in processor selection can be described as success or failure in Qualcomm and Qualcomm.
The success of 20 12 Xiaomi 2 depends largely on Qualcomm's APQ8064. Xiaomi 2 equipped with this quad-core processor beat all the competitors on the market at that time in performance, which made many competitors who used Exynos 44 12 or Tegra 4 miserable. A year ago, Qualcomm MSM8260 equipped by Xiaomi 1 was also ridiculed by netizens as "glue dual-core".
But after Xiaomi 2, Xiaomi doesn't seem to have an advantage on the CPU. Xiaolong 800 for 20 13 Xiaomi 3 has not been mass-produced for two months. Snapdragon 80 1 used by Xiaomi 4 on 20 14 has limited performance improvement. The mass-produced Xiaolong 820 has disrupted the release rhythm of Xiaomi Note and Xiaomi 5.
In contrast, Huawei has been using its own HiSilicon Kirin SoC in recent years, which is not influenced by Qualcomm. OPPO and vivo have never used performance as a selling point, and they have also avoided this kind of distress.
In the first half of 20 16, Xiaomi's main mobile phone products were Xiaomi 5, Redmi 3 and Red Rice note3 released from the end of last year to the beginning of this year. These three products have not achieved a breakthrough in hardware, and the flagship product Xiaomi 5 low-end version only has 3GB of RAM, which has become a constraint. Moreover, for a long time, the output of Xiaolong 820 cannot guarantee the continuous supply of Xiaomi 5.
The failure of Xiaomi Note also shattered Xiaomi's attempt to enter the high-end market.
Xiaomi, who overemphasized performance and relied on cost performance, was finally bitten by performance.
Marketing: "born for fever" has not adapted to the times.
Xiaomi's success benefits from the popularity of the mobile Internet. In the words of Lei Jun, he stood on the cusp of the times.
Before that, smart phones were just playthings for a few people. For most people, smartphones are expensive and difficult to use.
Xiaomi's earliest marketing strategy was to cultivate a group of highly loyal mobile phone enthusiasts, who were also the first users of MIUI. Lei Jun said that when mass users buy mobile phones, the first thing they think of must be to find mobile phone enthusiasts around them to act as staff officers. The cost of word-of-mouth marketing is low, but the effect is not necessarily bad.
Xiaomi has taken the lead in the market, and the rapid development of mobile internet for several years has created the myth of Xiaomi's growth rate. However, with the popularity of smart phones today, mobile phone enthusiasts are still a minority, but mass users know how to choose the right mobile phone.
At the moment of homogenization of mobile phones, Huawei, OPPO and vivo have all moved towards the route of differentiated development.
Huawei's Leica lens, vivo's main HIFI sound quality, has become the selling point of mobile phones in the new era. Even the fast charging technology has gone deep into OPPO's brainwashing propaganda of "charging for five minutes and talking for two hours". But in addition to "born for a fever", Xiaomi seems to be unable to find his own product selling point.
Obviously, "living for a fever" is no longer suitable for this era.
When the user group of smart phones turns from niche to mass, the previous marketing strategy will change. The recent sales growth of OPPO and vivo confirms the correctness of mass marketing strategy.
Channel: offline into the biggest short board
Xiaomi, born on 20 1 1, has firmly controlled the sales channel in its own hands from the first day, and it is 100% pure e-commerce channel.
Xiaomi, which is famous for its weekly snap-up and limited sale mode, has indeed eliminated the inventory cost that has plagued the retail industry for many years, despite the stigma of "hunger marketing". This sales model was later imitated by a large number of manufacturers and became the standard of domestic Internet mobile phones.
Xiaomi's pure e-commerce channel has been widely criticized, but with its excellent cost performance, Xiaomi's mobile phone still achieved good sales, and grabbing mobile phones has become a social phenomenon.
However, in the past two years, with the disappearance of online shopping demographic dividend, online channels have gradually declined. For third-tier and below cities, online shopping is still not convenient enough, and offline stores are still the first choice for users. In the case of offline channels, these users will give priority to offline channels for shopping.
Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei BG, publicly shouted at the beginning of this year that offline stores should cover at least 1 1,000 counties nationwide this year. The offline channels cultivated by OPPO and vivo for many years have already penetrated into various towns and villages in China like capillaries. In the view of OPPO and vivo, they did not "win" the township market, only they insisted on doing this market.
Even in first-and second-tier cities, offline channels have been placed with more high hopes.
Users who buy smartphones around 20 13 have ushered in the climax of changing phones in the past year. Consumption upgrades have made these users have a higher pursuit of mobile phones. This has also led to new changes in the domestic mobile phone market after 20 15.
According to IDC, the average selling price of smartphones in China has increased from 1380 yuan in 20 13 years to 17 14 yuan. The era of mobile phone manufacturers spelling parameters is about to pass, and material workmanship and innovative functions have become new selling points.
And these selling points are often not displayed by cold parameter information. More and more consumers want to get started before buying a mobile phone.
But the offline channel is precisely the biggest shortcoming of Xiaomi at present. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun recently announced the expansion of offline channels and continued to strengthen the construction of Xiaomi House. However, the construction and maintenance of offline stores require a lot of time and economic costs, which will only continue to drag down Xiaomi's revenue in a short time.
At the Davos Forum in the summer of 20 16, Lei Jun said that Xiaomi would be a MUJI in the field of science and technology in the future, covering all fields of science and technology life, but it would be restrained in SKU. These products will be presented simultaneously in Xiaomi House and Xiaomi Online Mall, and more Xiaomi Houses will be built in the future. This is regarded by the outside world as a signal of Xiaomi's transformation.
Xiaomi still has the ability that other manufacturers do not have. Ninebot, a Xiaomi eco-chain company, recently said that the sales volume of Xiaomi balance car has reached nearly one million. Starting from the smart bracelet, Xiaomi opened a new market.
However, the sales and profits of smart hardware and smart home products still cannot be compared with the more popular mobile phone industry. If the core Xiaomi mobile phone business is impacted, Xiaomi's valuation and financing will be greatly affected.
Capital may continue to be optimistic about the prospects of Xiaomi, but there is not much time left for Xiaomi to turn over.