Millet internationalization can go far

Recently, in addition to launching millet 4 mobile phone in full swing, millet biggest move is internationalized. Not only did Hugo Barra, head of Android's core team, dig up from Google, but also launched the pre-sale India on 15 July with great fanfare. Will Xiaomi replicate its success in China abroad?

We know that Xiaomi has set a task of selling 60 million handsets this year. However, only 26.1 million handsets were sold in the first half of the year, less than half of the year's total. It is still far from the annual target. From this we can see that millet has encountered growth bottlenecks in the mobile phone, which of course has the overall peak in the smart phone market factors, but also China Cool couplet's fierce competition for millet.

In order to solve the problem of a slowdown in the growth of handset business, there are two measures for Xiaomi, one is to expand to other hardware fields and the other is to expand internationally. In internationalization, millet locked Southeast Asian markets similar to Chinese culture such as Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as similar BRICS countries such as India and Brazil, which are also populous, developing countries and have similarities with Chinese mobile phone users The demand is expected to duplicate its mode.

However, in general, Xiaomi's internationalization path seems too hasty given its lack of internal strength. I think there are four reasons for this:

First of all, in the international market, the core of the millet model - Lei Jun's appeal is almost useless, and the previous imitation of Jobs may hurt millet's international image.

The success of millet in China, Lei Jun's call to power is not part of the leadership role of the Leiyuan is the greatest influence on the rice noodles and Lei Jun in the social marketing also plays a flag role. However, foreign consumers, but few people know Lei Jun, Lei Jun in foreign countries can almost be ignored. Even worse, Lei Jun in early millet in order to quickly become famous, will pack themselves into Rebus, always challenge the apple, hoping to pack millet into Chinese apples, it is easy for foreign users that millet is Apple's Chinese cottage Product, which has a very negative impact on the image of millet in foreign countries.

Lei Jun has also seen this lethality, recently repeatedly voiced hope that the removal of Rebs' hat, also shouted "do not do Chinese apple millet to the world", the willingness to wash their own white is very urgent, but this Need a process. In fact, millet in the international market, the biggest problem is the brand, if you can not quickly establish their own brand, it is only a good price of mobile phones, can not form a premium. In this regard, millet need to think, Huawei's approach is already beginning to push overseas with relatively high-end mobile phone brand, and use low-end mobile phone sales volume.

Second, millet-based e-commerce model is also facing difficulties in foreign countries, and its obvious lack of capacity in the operator channels. Xiaomi's biggest success in China is the direct sales model to users, which not only greatly reduces costs, but also directly contacts with users, which is the main basis for its fan economy and product iteration.

However, it will not work in other countries. Overseas, each country is not the same situation, marketing, logistics, customer service, etc. are different, Xiaomi want to continue its e-commerce model is very difficult.

At this time, millet has two roads, either with foreign mature e-commerce cooperation, such as Amazon, etc .; or more mainstream channels - operators to distribute their products. However, the first road will make its so-called Internet thinking greatly reduced, can not directly face their own users, can no longer be any better product iteration and other actions; the second way, millet compared to already spelled overseas For many years and Huawei and ZTE operators close, the gap is too large, the internationalization of millet is facing channel problems.

Third, the rapid popularity of millet is facing the quality problem, which is crucial for millet, which is initially involved in the overseas market. Millet in China had experienced a detour, began to focus only on marketing, while ignoring the quality control, resulting in a lot of quality problems millet 1. The good news is that millet rapid iteration makes its product quality continues to improve, but in internationalization, millet need to pay more attention to product quality problems, otherwise it will pay a serious price.

Differences in overseas markets, but the product quality requirements are very high, especially for mobile phones such electronic products even more so, in addition millet as Made in China's representative even more to prove himself at the outset. Huawei, ZTE, which have been internationalized for many years, also faced quality problems when they first entered the overseas market. However, they have taken this detour to the right track by relying on supply chain strength and stringent quality control measures. The rapid popularity of millet, you need to continue to practice internal strength in this area, and strive to not appear mass user complaints, otherwise it will lead to negative public praise, damage their overseas image.

Fourth, the real danger of Millet's internationalization is the issue of patents, while behind the issue of patents is the gap in technological innovation. The issue of patents is also a common problem faced by domestic brands when they expand overseas. As we all know, international brands often use Chinese patent sticks to suppress the rise of Chinese companies overseas. Take Huawei as an example. It has encountered patent litigation of international companies such as Cisco and Motorola. Samsung and Apple protracted patent lawsuits also let people remember.

I conducted a rough inquiry on the website of the State Intellectual Property Office and found that Huawei had 71,903 patents while Xiaomi had only 1,141 patents, even though ZTE has also reached 55,728. This reflects the millet's patent gap. For Huawei and ZTE, with the advantage of communications equipment out of the first, and emphasis on technology research and development and innovation, which has accumulated a wealth of patents. Even for Lenovo, but also through the acquisition of Motorola mobile phones, make up their own patent short board, laid the foundation for internationalization. But for Xiaomi, only three years of founding time, and Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, etc., this area to make up a lot more.

Millet internationalization needs to be solved, in addition to the above four issues, in fact, there are many. For example, in terms of talent structure, is there any talent that can truly understand the international market? There should not be only one Hugo Barra. For example, can we optimize the supply chain and allocate our own resources globally? Internationalization of Apple, Samsung and Nokia is always accompanied by the global allocation of product components and resources. In this regard, the gap between the two is also very large.

I believe that the first wave of international millet by virtue of cost, there will certainly be similar to China and the craze to buy. However, internationalization is a protracted war. To achieve real success, what is needed is the comprehensive strength of technology, brand, talent and resources. If we are unprepared, we will rush to the conclusion and the outcome will be predictable.