Editor Li Wei
Head map source interviewee
At this moment, Lei Jun waited for six years.
165438+1On October 5th, Lei Jun, founder, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi Group, announced at the 2020 MIDC (the 4th Xiaomi Developers Conference) that Xiaomi's shipments had returned to the top three in the world. According to the statistical report of global smartphone market in the third quarter of 2020 released by three international market research institutions, such as IDC, Xiaomi's mobile phone shipments surpassed Apple, ranking third in the world.
Lei Jun clearly remembers that the last time Xiaomi won the third place in the world, it dates back to the third quarter of 20 14. "Very excited." Lei Jun showed his trademark smile.
This achievement is really hard-won. In the past six years, Xiaomi experienced a supply chain crisis, and its shipments plummeted, and its sales volume once fell out of the sixth place in the world. Lei Jun had to personally take the lead in fighting the fire and decided to "make up lessons for three years" in the trough. After coming out of the trough, Lei Jun proudly shouted: "No mobile phone company in the world can successfully reverse the decline in sales, except Xiaomi!"
However, the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 has put the global mobile phone industry chain in a difficult position and disrupted the progress of mobile phone companies including Xiaomi. Adam Gao, vice president of Xiaomi Group and president of mobile phone department, said that it was a "great success" to return to the top three in the world under such a severe background.
For Xiaomi's return to the top three in the world, Lei Jun summed it up as a "technology-oriented" victory. In the future, will Xiaomi play "offensive" or "defensive"? Adam Gao told China Entrepreneur frankly, "There is no doubt that Xiaomi can't stay until today. Facing the future, Lei Zong (Lei Jun) proposed that Xiaomi should return to a very' hard' entrepreneurial state. "
Technical occupation
"2065438+July 2006, Xiaomi was at its lowest point, and we made up our minds to make up lessons for three years!" Lei Jun said that Xiaomi has made large-scale remedial classes in the technical field while stepping up its study in the manufacturing field. The content of remedial classes mainly focuses on two aspects: one is the construction of R&D system, and the other is the accumulation of R&D technology.
2065438+February 2009, Xiaomi adjusted its organizational structure, and technology became the focus of upgrading. Cui Baoqiu, vice president of Xiaomi Group, is in charge of the technical committee of Xiaomi Group and serves as the chairman of the technical committee to comprehensively supervise Xiaomi's future technical strategy, technical talents and technical organization decision-making and cooperation.
Lei Jun pointed out at the internal meeting that Xiaomi's R&D investment budget in 2020 will exceed 654.38+000 billion, and technology is related to Xiaomi's life and death, so it is necessary to continue to strengthen the "technical foundation".
Cui Baoqiu recalled that when he first joined Xiaomi, Xiaomi had only four pillar businesses-Xiaomi mobile phone, MIUI, Michao and Xiaomi. At that time, he asked Lei Jun: "You said that Xiaomi is an Internet company, so where is the background R&D team of the Internet?" After getting a "no" answer, Cui Baoqiu quickly took over the Mi Chat server team, turned the team of 20 people into a millet cloud platform, and began to build corresponding cloud technology, cloud storage, cloud computing and big data teams.
Cui Baoqiu, a classmate of Lei Jun Computer Department of Wuhan University, is a doctor of computer science at new york State University. He has worked in IBM Silicon Valley Lab, Yahoo and LinkedIn, and engaged in technology research and development and management in the fields of database, search engine, machine learning, big data and social networking. "I didn't understand hardware before, but later I learned how complicated Xiaomi's hardware technology is, just like suddenly opening a door." Cui Baoqiu lamented.
Cui Baoqiu believes that Xiaomi has achieved a leading overtaking in the era of mobile Internet. "Millet is a microcosm of China. There are many innovation opportunities and application products in China. We have done mobile payment, mobile socialization and mobile communication. In the future AIoT era, China will have more opportunities. Only with data and computing power can we make cool smart products. "
Talent is the source of innovation.
Liu De, co-founder of Xiaomi, was transferred from 2065438 to September 2008 as the organization minister of the newly established group organization department. The organization department is mainly responsible for the employment, promotion, training, assessment and encouragement of middle and senior management cadres, as well as the organizational construction and preparation approval of various departments. Previously, Liu De's work was mainly focused on the front line of Xiaomi's ecological chain.
2065438+September 2008, Xiaomi ushered in the biggest organizational structure change since its establishment. The open and flat management structure in the past is no longer suitable for a company with more than 20 thousand employees. If Xiaomi wants to become a' war machine', it will undoubtedly need higher efficiency.
Problems such as R&D system construction and Xiaomi team organization construction all fell on Liu De's head. Today, the organization department has been established for more than two years, and Xiaomi is still groping.
"I found that every company's organizational changes are different and personalized, but my biggest gain recently is to' control the key minority', which is too important." Liu De said, "As long as any company manages the' key minority', no matter whether the company has tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people, there is no problem, so we all consider it later."
At the beginning of its establishment, when Xiaomi recruited the top 300 employees, each Xiaomi partner had to participate in the interview of candidate employees, a total of 7 rounds. Liu Degang didn't understand at first, why did he have to recruit these 300 people? Until later, a partner told Liu De, "We hope that these 300 people can manage 3,000 people or even 30,000 people in the future." This also reflects the thinking of the "key minority".
In the past two years, Xiaomi has made frequent adjustments in organizational structure, personnel and strategy. In the management of senior cadres, Liu De admits that Xiaomi essentially adopts a people-centered management model. With more and more young people entering Xiaomi, a talent training system has been gradually established.
This year, Xiaomi launched the largest campus recruitment since its establishment. In 20021year, Xiaomi will recruit 5,000 engineers, accounting for more than 20% of Xiaomi's current total employees. "Talent is the source of innovation. The first step to improve technical strength is to gather top talents. " Lei Jun said.
Chasing high-end
For Xiaomi, what is special about 2020 is that it has imagined a "high-end dream" for many years and finally saw the dawn.
In the past two years, with the encroachment of Huawei and Ov(OPPO, vivo) on the domestic market, the proportion of Xiaomi market has declined seriously, and the situation is critical. At the beginning of 20 19, Lei Jun even played the slogan "Look down on life and death, do it if you don't accept it" at the press conference. In the past year or so, Xiaomi has frequently introduced external executives and adjusted its organizational structure, all around the changes made in China and the core mobile phone business.
In 2020, Xiaomi's high-end smartphones Xiaomi 10 series and Xiaomi 10 Extreme Commemorative Edition were released one after another. Adam Gao told China Entrepreneur: "In the mobile phone market, the high-end person wins the world." However, Xiaomi has always brought its own "cost-effective" label. Under this label, Xiaomi's profit and brand are difficult to break through.
Judging from the sales data, only the high-end can solve the problems that plague Lei Jun. ..
According to data from market research firm Konas, in the third quarter of 2020, Xiaomi ranked third in the European market share, with a year-on-year increase of 965,438+0%, only slightly behind Apple. According to the data provided by Xiaomi, in foreign countries, products in the price range of 500-700 euros increased by nearly 300% year-on-year, and products in the price range above 700 euros increased by more than 300% year-on-year. In addition, in terms of operators, Xiaomi has entered 50 countries around the world, with operators 5 1 and subnets 107, among which there are many high-end operators.
However, Xiaomi has to face the fact that the basic dishes of Xiaomi are still borne by Redmi.
Adam Gao cited Omdia's list of TOP 10 vehicles in the first half of 2020. "In the first half of this year, the sales volume of single mobile phones in the world was the top ten. Except for Apple and Samsung, Xiaomi occupied four seats." However, China Entrepreneur noted that these four products are all Redmi products with the price range below 2,000 yuan.
In this regard, Adam Gao elaborated Xiaomi's views on the high-end and low-end echelons: "We strive to break through the high-end extreme technology, and then sink the technology into the Redmi series, so that users of thousand yuan machines can also enjoy the experience brought by the technological breakthrough. On the other hand, tens of millions of Redmi users can experience high-end, and slowly grow a group of high-end users to form a virtuous circle. "
Redmi defends the basic disk and enhances the high-end imagination space. Xiaomi's next play has been very clear.
Now, the senior management team of Xiaomi's mobile phone department combs products around Xiaomi's dual-brand strategy every week. The goal is to make each generation of products exquisite and explosive. At the strategic level, it has made continuous efforts in product innovation and user experience. "Xiaomi believes that the opportunities in the future are very great." Adam Gao revealed.
In 2020, black swan incidents occurred frequently, and the situation faced by mobile phone manufacturers was more complicated than before, and the international situation remained unclear. The growth of the smartphone market has gradually peaked, and the wave of 5G replacement that the market had expected failed to arrive as scheduled.
Adam Gao told China Entrepreneur: "This year, the global mobile phone market, especially in China, continued to decline, and the global mobile phone market entered an inventory era. We are also judging that the transition from 4G to 5G does not seem to be as drastic as everyone felt in the past. This year doesn't seem to be completely like this. "
What is the reason? Xiaomi believes that the rise of the mobile Internet has led to the emergence of a number of killer applications, such as Tik Tok, a auto faster and WeChat. At present, operators are still building a 5G network, and the technical investment continues. Everyone is waiting. Xiaomi is even promoting the emergence of killer applications in the 5G era. "My personal opinion is that there may be greater breakthroughs in the field of video and driverless driving in the future." Adam Gao said.
In addition, it is not only China mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo. Moreover, international manufacturers such as Samsung and Apple are also eyeing the market share that Huawei may vacate due to power outages. The mobile phone industry is undergoing an unprecedented change. Both Xiaomi and Ov have increased their purchases of chips. An insider of a chip supplier told China Entrepreneur that most mobile phone manufacturers have raised their shipment forecast for next year by 50%.
Where is the future?
With the accumulation of technology, where will Xiaomi go in the future? Adam Gao gave the answer, that is, Xiaomi's core strategy "mobile phone AIoT".
In 2020, the war between mobile phone manufacturers in the ecological field of Internet of Things will become more and more fierce. Many mobile phone manufacturers, such as Huawei, Apple, Yijia, OPPO, etc. , have rushed to the beach, smart hardware such as watches and TVs have become standard for manufacturers. However, due to the differences in layout time and main product categories, the ecological models of various Internet of Things are also different.
Xiaomi began to lay out IOT products as early as 20 14, and quickly opened up the product line by incubating eco-chain enterprises. At present, Xiaomi Eco-chain has rich intelligent hardware support in the industry and has gained a firm foothold in the Internet of Things market in China. As of June this year, Xiaomi's financial report shows that the number of connected devices (excluding smart phones and laptops) on the Internet of Things platform has reached 276,543.8+billion, a year-on-year increase of 38.3%.
In addition, Xiaomi also invested in four eco-chain enterprises to land in the capital market-Huami, Mi Yun, Roborock and No.9 Company. By the first half of 2020, Xiaomi has invested in more than 300 companies with a total book value of 36.8 billion RMB.
In August this year, Xiaomi's core strategy was officially upgraded from "mobile phone +AIoT" to "mobile phone AIoT". Adam Gao explained at the developer conference that this means that Xiaomi's mobile phone and AIoT business are not just a simple addition in the past, but will put more emphasis on the chemical reaction between the mobile phone and the Internet of Everything. In other words, after having enough equipment, Xiaomi AIoT began to consider "deep interconnection".
Liu De is the person who established the Xiaomi ecological chain. Looking back now, Liu De believes that the times created the ecology of Xiaomi, or that Xiaomi grasped the pulse of the times and made the ecological chain come to this day.
"At that time, a group of millet engineers lived in the village of Shenzhen. When we are still looking for investment projects, some employees can't help but question whether investors are working in ITC, so can they really make good investments? But in this way, a batch of teams that rushed to the front line to see the project brought a steady stream of water income to Xiaomi, and the Xiaomi ecological chain also grew at unimaginable geometric multiples. " Liu De recalled.
When the mobile phone market enters the stock age, the competition will only become more intense. In the field of hardware, we must keep running and innovating. Lei Jun still goes to the front line of mobile phones, and several core executives of Xiaomi's mobile phone department almost never leave the company before 1 1 at night. "This is our basic state and Xiaomi's current' entrepreneurial' mentality." Adam Gao concluded.