兵临城下 —小米

原文:http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzA4MDYyMTcxOA==&mid=204588867&idx=3&sn=ca4e434df8988d0ce9f2363c26fa3db8&chksm=16641eba211397ac5c5e2390ccecf42f288297d0dc7ad952ea63d8f4e4ba514cff9e38724b85#rd

Meet Steve Jobs—sorry, Lei Jun

小米来了

An attention-grabbing Chinese superbrand goes global

中国智能手机品牌小米是消费技术行业的后起之秀,该公司董事长说,去年小米的销售额增长一倍有余,达122亿美元,该公司计划进一步在全球市场上扩张。

At an investor pitch in Hong Kong, a Shanghai startup compares its technology to the Apple store’s handheld point-of-sale terminals, which liberate sales assistants from the traditional till. It uses another reference, however, for its growth targets: “We want to be the Xiaomi of the retail-software world,” declares a co-founder. The ambition is grand. Beijing-based Xiaomi expects to sell 100m smartphones in 2015, four years after launching its first model—beating Apple to the milestone by a year.

小米公司诞生于五年前,去年它售出6110万部手机,比2013年增长227%。小米董事长雷军在公司博客上表示,公司营收743亿元人民币,同比增长135%。


Comparisons between these two technology companies will become more common as Xiaomi steps up its international expansion. It already sells across South-East Asia and India. The next stops are Brazil, birthplace of Hugo Barra, the firm’s head of international expansion who was poached from Google in 2013, and Mexico, right on America’s doorstep.

Mr Barra is shaping Xiao­­mi for its Western debut, starting with rebranding it Mi (pronounced “me”). This is partly because non-Chinese speakers struggle to pronounce “x” correctly. Plus, xiao means “little” in Chinese, which is hardly appropriate any more. The company has considered an American launch in 2015, but has avoided making any firm commitments. Doubts surround the viability of its online sales-and-marketing model in developed markets. Yet the decision is to some extent out of its hands.


小米来了, 如苹果当初

Such is the clamour for its products that it had to close an online store set up in Australia by unaffiliated enthusiasts. Third-party vendors currently sell its latest smartphone, the Mi4, through Amazon’s marketplaces in Europe’s five largest economies, creating the type of grey market in the rich world that the iPhone had in China before it officially went on sale. In Britain the unofficial price for the phone is around £350 ($560), almost twice the Chinese price.


小米在全球引发抢购。会不会一天,美国人排队求爷爷告奶奶的买小米...

Xiaomi is riding a growing trend for “good enough” phones at a reasonable price. Its innovation—certainly not lifted from Apple—is in branding this as desirable to the young, tech-fanatic consumers previously drawn into the Apple cult. But it won’t enjoy this first-mover advantage for long. OnePlus, founded in Shenzhen in 2013, started selling its first smartphone in 2014 by invitation only, creating a Xiaomi-like buzz.

以手机销售数量而言,去年第二季度,小米超越三星电子(Samsung Electronics),成为中国最畅销的智能手机品牌。这家民营公司总部设在北京,最近从投资者处完成了一轮融资。雷军说,据此小米估值为450亿美元,这让它成为了世界上最具价值的科技品牌之一。

物美价廉亲民路线。

先发制人造势,后有OnePlus赶追.

Talk of Xiaomi going public will persist in 2015 despite denials made by the firm’s boss, Lei Jun. Xiao­mi has already secured an American-dollar credit facility, a typical pre-IPO step aimed at spreading familiarity among international investors. Besides, Apple went public in 1980, within four years of launching its first product. It surely won’t be long before everybody gets the chance to buy into the cult of Mi.


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