No.: BMR2004
On July 4th, 2022, Xiaomi 12S series mobile phones were officially released, and all models were equipped with Leica optical lens and Leica twin quality. For the first highlight after the exclusive cooperation with Leica, Xiaomi naturally focused on the improvement of mobile phone imaging capabilities.
Although the price of Xiaomi's flagship mobile phone of 5999 yuan is not cheap, it is worthwhile for Wang Yan to experience the charm of Leica's "Dewei" at this price. However, he still doubts whether Xiaomi can gain a foothold in the high-end market through cooperation with Leica.
"Compared with any time in the past, Xiaomi at this moment is undoubtedly more powerful in impacting high-end technology, otherwise Lei Jun will not have the confidence to shout the slogan of benchmarking Apple. In terms of hardware configuration, Xiaomi can be said to lose Apple at all, but if Xiaomi wants to occupy a place in the high-end mobile phone market, he always feels that there is still something missing. " Rebecca said.
Work with Leica and Xiaomi to explore this situation.
Xiaomi hopes to build a strong public awareness of mobile phone photography and video recording with Leica, and needs Leica to enhance the overall brand image of its mobile phone.
Since Xiaomi officially announced the strategic cooperation with Leica in May, many people are expecting what kind of surprises these two brands can create together. After more than a month of preheating and publicity, Xiaomi can be said to have hung the appetite of the public.
At this remarkable press conference on July 4th, Xiaomi brought two "heavy selling points". First, the Xiaomi 12S series mobile phone processors are completely switched to the "Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+" mobile platform manufactured by TSMC, which effectively alleviates the heating problem caused by Samsung OEM of previous generations of Qualcomm processors; The second is to present the photographic concept, technology and style of Leica's century-old precipitation on Xiaomi mobile phone.
According to Lei Jun, the deep cooperation between the two sides is mainly reflected in the deep joint development of the whole link, such as the professional optical lens developed by * * *. Leica brings its optical technology and aesthetic experience, and integrates Leica's sound quality and image experience into Xiaomi's new machine.
Joint cooperation is for win-win and mutual benefit, and both sides have their own needs and purposes. In this regard, TMT industry commentator Zhang Shule once pointed out that Xiaomi and Leica learn from each other in a sense.
Interestingly, when Leica and Xiaomi entered the "honeymoon period", Huawei, the former partner, was not addicted to the memories of past cooperation. Instead, I practiced hard and learned a "new skill".
On July 2nd, Huawei released a brand-new brand "Huawei Image XMAGE", which means that Huawei's mobile phone image has a unique logo. In this regard, Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei and CEO of terminal BG, is quite confident, saying that this is a sign of Huawei's outstanding imaging ability and will bring Huawei users a more professional and enjoyable photography experience.
Nowadays, under the trend that mobile phone manufacturers are pursuing joint brands with camera brands (such as vivo and Zeiss, OPPO and Hasselblad, Xiaomi and Leica), Huawei can build its own image brand, which also proves the value of adhering to the road of independent research and development.
"After Huawei gave up its cooperation with Leica, it meant giving up optical imaging technology and turning to its own digital imaging technology. In terms of digital imaging, Huawei left much earlier than other manufacturers. Huawei has previously launched the world's first Kirin 970 equipped with NPU chip, and Mate 10 mobile phone released by 20 17 has also achieved a leap in AI capabilities with this chip, realizing the progress of AI photography driving moving images. Therefore, even without Leica, Huawei can make up for the shortcomings of traditional optical imaging technology by using digital imaging technology. " Yan Wang thinks so.
Looking back on the cooperation with Leica, Huawei has achieved a win-win situation in product sales and brand influence. 2065438+In February 2006, Huawei and Leica announced the establishment of a long-term strategic partnership; In April of the same year, Huawei P9 series, the first product they cooperated with, was officially born, which is the world's first smart phone with Leica dual lenses.
The release of Huawei P9 set off a best-selling craze that year. In just eight months, Huawei's global shipments of P9 exceeded100000 units. In this regard, Yu Chengdong once said that this is Huawei's first high-end product with a shipment of over10 million.
Since then, through continuous product iteration, Huawei P series and Mate series flagship models have also established a fairly wide brand awareness and high-end image in the consumer market with the blessing of Leica lenses. Then, as Leica's "new love", whether Xiaomi can achieve great success in word of mouth, image and sales like Huawei at the beginning still needs market test.
Liu Buchen, a senior observer, said that from the information released by Xiaomi, it has high expectations for cooperation with Leica. "On the one hand, Xiaomi hopes to use Leica to create a strong public awareness of mobile photography and cameras. After all, there is a precedent for the successful cooperation between Huawei and Leica; On the other hand, Xiaomi also needs Leica to enhance the overall brand image of mobile phones. After all, the brand image of Xiaomi is still relatively weak, and the recognition of Xiaomi brand by middle and high-end consumers is not high. However, it will take some time for Xiaomi to change the public's perception and increase sales in the high-end market. "
Based on high-end, it is far from a day's work.
After Huawei was affected by sanctions and faded out of the market, it was eroded by the Apple brand. As for Xiaomi, it didn't get much bonus in the high-end mobile phone market.
It must be admitted that Xiaomi's investment in products and R&D in recent years is remarkable, and it has gradually got rid of the brand image of deliberately pursuing "cost performance" in the past. At the beginning, that set of cost-effective gameplay was handed over to its Redmi brand (formerly Redmi brand) to continue to carry forward.
This is also the "double brand" development strategy established by Xiaomi at the beginning of 20 19. At that time, the Redmi brand was officially independent, focusing on the mass market and adhering to the basic disk, while the Xiaomi brand officially made efforts to the high-end market from that moment on.
In order to fight the high-end war, Xiaomi has worked hard in the last three years. First, in 20 19, Xiaomi cut off the previous MAX, Note and Digital +X series to streamline the product line layout; Then in 2020, with the release of Xiaomi 10/ 10 Pro, Xiaomi 10 speed commemorative edition and Xiaomi 1 1, Xiaomi established a good reputation in the middle and high-end front.
In 20021year, Xiaomi stepped up its pace and successively launched six models, including the first folding screen mobile phone, "Android Light" Xiaomi11pro/11ultra, and the full-screen flagship Xiaomi MIX Fold Xiaomi12.
It is not difficult to see from the above list of many products that Xiaomi's obsession and determination to promote high-end brands have increased year by year. Then, after three years of hard work, has Xiaomi laid a good foundation in the high-end mobile phone market?
According to IDC, a market research organization, in the first half of 2020, before Huawei was affected by sanctions, Huawei's smartphone market share in China was 44. 1%, slightly higher than Apple's 44%, and Huawei was the only mobile phone brand that could compete with Apple in the high-end market.
In the past 202 1 year, Apple occupied 66% of China's mobile phone market with the price above $600. By the first quarter of 2022, Apple's figure has grown to 7 1%, and Xiaomi's market share is only 4%.
Ding, an observer of sankei and founder of Nail Technology, believes that "Huawei can compete with Apple and Samsung on the same stage in the high-end mobile phone market, and it has also experienced a long period of downturn and tempering until Huawei formed its own brand voice with a series of independent and controllable hard technologies, which has been recognized by the market. It can be seen that the high-end influence of the brand can not be established overnight. Even if Huawei voluntarily gives up the market, it is difficult for other domestic brands to make up for it in the near future. On the other hand, because Apple has its own high-end brand awareness, it can quickly eat these markets. "
However, high-end is a protracted war, and Xiaomi is still working hard for it. On the evening of February 8, 2022, Lei Jun organized an internal team to hold a high-end strategy seminar, at which a high-end strategy working group was formally established. At this unique meeting, Lei Jun conveyed a signal to all employees: "The high-end road is the only way for Xiaomi to grow, and it is also the battle of life and death for Xiaomi's development."
According to Lei Jun's plan, Xiaomi will make its products and experiences fully benchmark the iPhone on the basis of the number one mobile phone sales in the world within three years, and strive to win the first place in the domestic high-end mobile phone market in the next three years.
When this "New Year's Flag" came out, it immediately caused a heated discussion. Among the many voices, there are supporters and many mocking voices. Even many people think that this statement is just a decision made by Lei Jun at the moment.
In the view of Zhang Xiaorong, president of Shenzhen Academy of Sciences, this goal of Xiaomi is still possible after careful consideration. "First of all, the main goal mentioned by Xiaomi in the plan refers to the first market share of domestic high-end mobile phones. The word' domestic' has excluded foreign companies with two high-end forces, Apple and Samsung. In other words, Xiaomi is actually limiting the opponents of high-end roads in the past three years to domestic friends such as Huawei, Glory OPPO and vivo. "
In order to create a world in the high-end market, Xiaomi is ready. At present, Xiaomi has continuously increased its investment in R&D, from 50 billion yuan in the previous five years to 654.38+000 billion yuan. The continuous investment in R&D has also enabled Xiaomi to make significant progress in images, fast charging, screens and batteries.
Benchmarking Apple still needs to face up to the gap.
Since it is necessary to benchmark apple, Xiaomi must also make achievements on the road of core-building, in order to get rid of the public's doubts about its lack of core technology.
"The benchmark iPhone is not the slogan inside Xiaomi, but the real details!" Since last year, Lei Jun has said in public more than once that he wants to benchmark Apple, including this Xiaomi 12S series conference. Although shouting such slogans can attract the attention of the public, it must be admitted that Xiaomi and Apple have never been an opponent of an order of magnitude.
If you want to benchmark Apple, Xiaomi must have long-term R&D investment. According to Xiaomi's financial report in the last three years, from 20 19 to 20021year, Xiaomi's R&D investment was 7.49 billion yuan, 9.26 billion yuan and 132 billion yuan respectively. From the data point of view, Xiaomi's R&D investment has increased significantly year by year, and it is no longer criticized by the outside world as an "assembly factory" with no technical content as in the early years. However, if compared with apple, the R&D intensity of millet is still far from enough.
The financial report shows that since Apple's R&D investment in 20 16 exceeded 10 billion US dollars, during the period from 20 17 to 202 1 year, Apple's R&D investment was 654.38+065.438+058 million US dollars respectively (.
Source: Business school collates according to the annual report data.
The main reason why Apple spends so much money on R&D is that it does not hesitate to spend money on self-developed chips. After all, the self-developed chip has a large investment in resources, a long research and development cycle, high difficulty in cross-domain development and incalculable cost. It is under such harsh conditions that it is so difficult for Apple to develop its own processor chips for smart phones, smart watches and notebook computers.
Since it is necessary to benchmark apple, Xiaomi must also make achievements on the road of core-building, in order to get rid of the public's doubts about its lack of core technology. But looking back at the core-making process of Xiaomi, it is not as smooth as expected.
20 17 February, after 28 months of research and development, Xiaomi launched the first self-developed SoC chip (SoC), which once excited Lei Jun, but the good times did not last long. With the immature tuning and fever of Xiaomi 5C mobile phone equipped with S 1, the chip has not been reused in other mobile phones, and the subsequent S2 has been reported many times, which leads to the dystocia of Xiaomi's self-developed SoC plan.
Moreover, due to the extremely high cost of R&D and manufacturing of mobile phone SoC, Xiaomi had to give up the self-research of SoC chip in a short time and began to develop a special chip with relatively low complexity in the core-making strategy. In March of 20021year, Xiaomi released the self-developed image signal processing chip 2855438+0; In 65438+February of the same year, Xiaomi's self-developed fast charging chip 2855438+0 was listed; In July 2022, Xiaomi brought a self-developed 2855438+0 battery management chip and put it on Xiaomi 12S Ultra.
Although Xiaomi failed in the self-developed SoC chip, on the special chip, Xiaomi finally walked out of a feasible road, which also shows that Xiaomi's core-making has changed from radical to pragmatic.
Zhang Xiaorong pointed out, "After several years of development, consumers have clearly realized that the high-end brand image depends on the innovation of the underlying technology, and the new brand recognition is established by controlling the core components. The development of special chip is only the first step of Xiaomi's core construction. If Xiaomi really wants to benchmark with Apple, it must also achieve breakthroughs in the underlying technological innovation and core components. "
It should be pointed out that the integrity of Apple's product experience is based on the self-developed SoC chip and self-developed operating system. Moreover, Apple is the only vendor in the world that has both mature mobile operating systems and desktop operating systems, such as iOS on mobile phones, Mac OS on computers and iPad OS on tablets.
On the basis of mastering the development ability of the whole platform system, Apple launched an offensive against the system built on X86 architecture, among which M 1 and M2 series chips based on ARM architecture are the most typical examples in its own Mac series product line. For the above, Xiaomi does not have strong software and hardware development strength in a short time.
At present, Xiaomi has made it clear that it will continue to return to the design and manufacture of mobile phone SoC chips. At the Xiaomi 12 conference, Lei Jun said that technology is the iron law of Xiaomi. In the past two years, Xiaomi has had an engineering team of more than16,000 people and invested 22 billion. In the next five years, Xiaomi's R&D investment will increase to 654.38+000 billion yuan.
In fact, 654.38+000 billion yuan is only less than a year's research and development expenses for Apple, but for young Xiaomi, this is already a huge progress. More importantly, the continuous increase in R&D investment has also made the outside world see Xiaomi's determination to get rid of the "stuck neck" problem. As Xiaomi gradually shortens the strength gap with Apple, Xiaomi can have more confidence in high-end brands.
"I think domestic mobile phones should have such courage. Why not compare them? We must take a clear-cut stand on products and experiences, formally propose to benchmark Apple and learn from Apple, and we must surpass Apple step by step in the future. " Lei Jun said this.
It is still unknown how long Xiaomi will surpass Apple in the future, but the drum of Xiaomi's challenge to Apple has just sounded.