Lei the Chinese smartphone market with the upstart millet

A commentary in the October 7 print edition of the Wall Street Journal titled "How Nouveau Riche can disrupt China's smartphone market" (how Upstart Xiaomi rattled's Smartphone Race) said With its low prices and good Word-of-mouth, the company's founder Lei even believes that they have surpassed Apple and Samsung Electronics in many ways. Market share September, millet company launched a new generation of smartphones in the noisy press conference. When the company's founder Lei announced the price, the table with a fluorescent wand, wearing a millet T-shirt, "rice noodles" excited to shout up. Compared with Apple's latest low-cost iphone 5C, the 1999 yuan (about 326 dollars) of millet 3 is cheaper than almost half. There is a similar price gap between Samsung handsets with similar configurations. Thanks to such low prices, millet has achieved rapid growth in China, the world's largest smartphone market. Although the LEI has only been founded in the past 3 years, according to Canalys, a market research firm, the company has won 5% per cent of China's smartphone market in the second quarter of 2013, surpassing Apple. After selling about 7 million units last year, millet plans to sell 20 million smartphones this year. Internet thinking "We use the Internet mindset," Lei, 43, said in an interview, "the best products on the Internet-the most frequently used products-are free." e-mail is free and most content is free. "With this free model, you'll be able to attract users as quickly as possible," he added, "and we're almost selling our products at cost." "The value of millet in the latest round of financing has reached $10 billion trillion. The company last year achieved revenue of about 12.65 billion yuan (about 2.07 billion U.S. dollars). While the Politburo Standing Committee to LEI and other technology industry executives to understand the latest developments in the industry, millet exposure rate has been further enhanced. The company is still controlled by Lei, company executives and outside investors. Millet did not disclose financial data. Some analysts believe that because of the meager profits of hardware products, coupled with the fierce price competition in the Chinese market, it will be difficult for millet to make too much profit in the next few years. "In order to gain a higher market reputation to support their valuations, they need to think about how to expand into the peripheral hardware and software markets." "said Huang Dejun, an analyst at IDC, an American market research firm. Business model Lei says the company can generate revenue by providing mobile apps and movies, based on an operating system developed on Android. Millet has its own website as a major sales platform, and they offer a range of accessories, including colorful batteries and shells, and hats and bunny dolls. 2012 and 2013, Millet sold a total of 680,000 meters rabbit doll, the price from 19 to 149 yuan (about 3 to 24 dollars). "About 10 million to 20 million people buy our phones, and 500,000 of them buy our rice bunnies," he said. "Lei said. He believes that the purchase of Rice rabbit is "rice noodles" a contribution to millet. Millet can accumulate a large number of loyal users, from each week they will be based on the recommendations of users to update the system. Lei said that whenever millet adopted the user's revised recommendations, will send a notice to it. "If you give us advice and we make changes soon, you will have a lasting sense of accomplishment." "Once you're sure we fixed the problem, you have a strong sense of ownership and then you praise millet to your classmates, friends, roommates and everyone else," he said. "The Millet brand is not limited to China's richest cities, but also to smaller regional hubs," he said. Tao, Ma Tao, rented a booth on the second floor of an electronic store in Shijiazhuang, which specializes in millet and other branded handsets. Young people like him often use the millet cell phone. He says Millet has become the number one choice, even surpassing Huawei, when consumers buy Chinese-branded handsets. "Because I only sell it online at the beginning, I don't think it can develop much," he said. "he said. Personal experience lei also draws on the many styles of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. He often wears dark T-shirts and, like jobs, personally hosts the grand launch. Lei said he first learned about jobs from the "fire of Silicon Valley" book about the rise of the 1980-year PC industry. Lei says he doesn't want to be Steve Jobs, just like him to be creative. To a certain extent, the "Internet thinking mode" of millet originates from the work course of the LEI in Jinshan software 16. Lei says the Kingsoft software has dabbled in a number of directions-from office software to security software to computer games-which also satisfies his desire to constantly try new things. In the Golden Hill software tenure, the company founded a Network of excellence, and ultimately in 2004 by the Amazon acquisition. Lei invested in many companies during the Golden Hill software, but 3 years ago he decided to start a new company. "When I was 40 years old, I realized I needed to do something," he said. " When I was young, I didn't understand something, so I didn't do it, but today I can do anything. "Poaching Google relies on 10 billion of dollars in valuations, and the value of millet is even more than the old smartphone makers such as Nokia and BlackBerry," he said. This August, the company also dug up the Android business from Google, Tangyugo (Hugo Barra), to help millet deploy international business and to work with Google. Speculation that the poaching action shows that the Millet plan to expand international expansion, but LEI to the company's goal is always secretive, but he also said that millet products enough to fight international competitors. "I think, in many ways, we've surpassed (Apple and Samsung)," he said, "that we have some sideNot as good as them, but in some ways better than them. He declined to disclose details, but added that it would take 3 years for the millet handset to surpass international rivals in quality. Lei said he was not going to lead the millet market for five years. Although the company's model has achieved great success in China, it has not yet shown its appeal to ordinary shareholders. "I don't think millet needs to let the market decide what we do is good or not," Lei said. "We have to develop according to our plans." ”