Lei Jun wants to bring goods, but the conditions do not allow it?

Lei Jun's first live streaming show was a cold reception, and the poor sales of Xiaomi Mi Band 9 attracted attention. Although Lei Jun has 28 million fans, the sales effect is not satisfactory. The smart bracelet market is declining, and smart watches are gradually becoming mainstream. Xiaomi faces the challenge of transformation. Lei Jun's energy is divided between car manufacturing and mobile phone business. Xiaomi's car sales fluctuate, and the mobile phone business is also sluggish. Behind the phenomenon of entrepreneurs becoming internet celebrities, the problem of misalignment between product strength and founder value is highlighted.

During this period, Lei Jun went to Paris on a business trip, and unexpectedly showed his "talent for selling goods" in a short video. It is reported that Lei Jun's power bank, headphones, sunglasses and even hot sauce... are all popular. Just as Lei Jun accidentally brought Vancl back to life, a small move by the boss is enough to keep an ordinary brand busy for half a lifetime.

If the end of the Internet is live streaming, then Lei Jun is the "hidden pearl" in the live streaming live streaming industry. Looking through the comments section of his Douyin account, many people have earnestly advised Lei Jun to live stream live streaming. Lei Jun followed suit and recently launched his first live streaming product in the product showcase of his personal Douyin account: Xiaomi Mi Band 9.

Lei Jun, who finally started his journey of selling goods, did not gain the popularity he had imagined.

It is reported that Lei Jun, who has more than 28 million fans, has only 3,000 followers for his Xiaomi wristband in the display window. Currently, Lei Jun has even removed the product he promoted, and the product display window has returned to zero. Before Lei Jun promoted the product, netizens were excited, but when the big boss really started promoting the product, the number of people who paid for it was not ideal.

1. Are there still products that Lei Jun cannot sell?

It briefly appeared in the top-tier window. I don’t know whether it was the luck of Xiaomi’s bracelet or the misfortune of the entire bracelet market. First of all, no one can deny Lei Jun’s popularity on the short video platform. According to media statistics, in the first half of 2024, there were only six Douyin fans who increased by more than 10 million, and Lei Jun was one of them.

In the 2024 annual speech, Lei Jun's live broadcast room peaked at 510,000, with a cumulative number of viewers reaching 14.89 million. Logically, this popularity should not be enough to support a mere affordable bracelet, but the fact is that this product, which once ignited the wearable market, has gradually declined.

In the current smart wearable market, bracelets are already yesterday’s news, and this is probably a reality that even Lei Jun has to admit.

Looking back to 2014, Xiaomi released its first smart bracelet, and sales exceeded 10 million within a year. Ten years later, the global wearable wristband device market shipments will increase by 5% in 2024, and the total volume may reach 194 million units, but the proportion of wristbands has dropped sharply.

Smart bracelets have suddenly fallen out of favor, and signs of this began to emerge as early as 2020. According to data from the authoritative data statistics agency IDC, by 2022, the sales volume of smart bracelets will be only 12.76 million units, a year-on-year decline of 27.1%, and the sales volume will be only 40% of that of smart watches. It is expected that in 2024, its share will continue to decline by 6%.

What replaced the bracelet was the smart watch.

As early as the first quarter of 2022, an organization released a market research report. At that time, a total of 41.7 million smart wrist devices were shipped worldwide, of which 32 million were smart watches and only 9.7 million were smart bracelets, which was less than 1/3 of the smart watch shipments in the same period. Data shows that the shipment volume of smart watches is expected to achieve a growth rate of 4% this year, and the market share is more likely to reach 46%.

This market situation has seriously affected Xiaomi's smart wearable business. Perhaps Lei Jun wanted to stimulate sales by putting the Xiaomi wristband on his display window, but it failed. It is worth noting that Xiaomi has always focused on wristbands, not watches.

In the field of watches, Xiaomi is struggling to catch up with Apple, Samsung and Huawei in terms of both user base and product innovation. For many years, Apple has been the number one in smart watch sales. As early as 2016, Apple Watch sold 11.9 million units, contributing nearly 50% of the market share for the whole year, and the total sales have now exceeded 200 million units.

But by 2021, Xiaomi's sales of Xiaomi watches had only reached 3 million.

When the main players in the smart wearable market changed from bracelets to watches, Xiaomi, which was not very solid in this business, was at a loss. Looking at the entire smart wearable field, what is even more troubling is that companies have been slow to find the next consumer pain point. Take Xiaomi as an example, the speed of Xiaomi bracelet replacement is getting faster and faster.

The model that appeared in Lei Jun’s window has developed to the ninth generation.

Not only Xiaomi, but also Apple's Apple Watch is facing this dilemma. Wristly's survey on Apple smartwatch users showed that more than half of the respondents believed that Apple Watch was not a must-have, and even nearly 25% of the users were dissatisfied with the existing functions of Apple Watch.

It is obvious that Xiaomi wants to create a more solid consumer closed loop with its limited products. However, the sales volume achieved by Lei Jun himself shattered this beautiful dream in one fell swoop.

This also suggests that Xiaomi, in addition to its vigorous car-making business, should not forget the development of other businesses.

2. Mr. Lei’s “energy” is running out

Ever since Lei Jun started making cars, rumors have never stopped that mobile phones and even Xiaomi's other consumer electronics have "fallen out of favor". In April this year, Lei Jun had to state at the Xiaomi Investor Conference that while he would devote half of his energy to the automotive business, he would also devote one-third of his energy to mobile phones.

Does Mr. Lei still have enough energy today?

First, Xiaomi Motors has gone through its most exciting period, but the subsequent momentum does not seem to keep up. According to the data in July, Xiaomi's weekly sales have declined significantly, falling from seventh to ninth place, with sales falling to 1,500 units, and has been overtaken by Xiaopeng.

From July 1 to July 7, Zeekr, Leapmotor, and Xiaomi sold 3,800, 3,800, and 3,700 vehicles respectively. From July 8 to July 14, Xiaomi's weekly sales fell back to 2,300 vehicles, a 38% drop compared to Xiaomi's first week in July. In the third week of July, Xiaomi's sales fell again, down 35% year-on-year to 1,500 units.

The automotive industry has not been very lucky, and the mobile phone business is not as good as before.

In the first quarter of 2024, Xiaomi's sales in the domestic market were only about 9.5 million units, and its ranking dropped to sixth place, slipping out of the top five. IDC statistics show that in the first quarter of this year, the five major manufacturers, Honor, Huawei, OPPO, Apple and vivo, accounted for nearly 80% of the domestic smartphone market share.

Globally, Xiaomi sold 40.7 million smartphones worldwide. Although it ranks third, its market share is mainly in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and other regions. The long-planned high-end route has not been implemented. In the first quarter of this year, the ASP (average selling price) of Xiaomi smartphones fell slightly by 0.6%.

However, this should not be a big deal. Xiaomi only needs to ensure that its mobile phone business can continue to make money. After all, compared with the mobile phones that have fallen out of the top five, the future of cars is more exciting. At present, in addition to sales, Xiaomi Auto also faces two key problems.

The first is the well-known ability to deliver.

It is undeniable that the domestic new energy vehicle industry has kicked off the "delivery war". In July, major automakers successively announced their delivery results for the first half of 2024. Among them, Wenjie and Ideal both achieved 40,000 deliveries per month, and Ideal completed 100,000 deliveries in the second quarter.

Weilai and Zeekr delivered more than 20,000 vehicles for two consecutive months, and Xpeng Motors' delivery increased by 23.76% year-on-year. It is reported that Xiaomi plans to deliver 100,000 vehicles by the end of this year, and a total of 25,000 vehicles in the first three months of the year, which means that in the next period of time, Xiaomi will achieve an average of 12,500 deliveries per month.

Lei Jun’s activeness on social platforms cannot alleviate the anxiety of car owners waiting.

In addition, after the release of Xiaomi's first car, Mi fans are eagerly waiting for the second car. According to the plan circulated online, the release rhythm of Xiaomi cars is basically consistent with the changes of the entire new energy vehicle. It plans to release three cars in three years. In 2024, it will be the pure electric sedan Xiaomi SU7, in 2025 it will be a pure electric SUV, and in 2026 it will be an extended-range SUV.

However, in a recent speech, Lei Jun did not disclose the news of Xiaomi's second car, and only unveiled a peak performance pure electric car "Xiaomi SU7 Ultra Prototype" based on Xiaomi SU7 at the one more thing stage. Compared with the usual high profile of the car manufacturing industry, this is somewhat unusual.

Perhaps, the Xiaomi SU7 occupied too much of Lei Jun's attention, leaving him no time to spare for other things.

3. Pursuing an Internet celebrity persona is a misalignment of the value of the product and the founder

One thing we have to admit is that while everyone in the business circle envies Lei Jun, being too popular has also brought him some "troubles". The discussion on "Is it good or bad for entrepreneurs to become Internet celebrities?" has always been one of the hot topics on social platforms. Even Lei Jun himself is worried that if his personal halo is too strong, it will be detrimental to Xiaomi.

First and foremost, the R&D and innovation behind Xiaomi Auto are likely to be ignored by the consumer market because of the powerful symbol of the founder himself. Lei Jun has always been proud of Xiaomi's investment in automotive R&D. In an interview with CCTV, Lei Jun bluntly stated that it usually takes 300 to 400 people and 1 billion to 2 billion yuan to build a car.

However, Xiaomi Auto's first car involved 3,400 engineers and over 10 billion yuan in R&D costs, which is more than ten times the investment of ordinary car companies. However, Lei Jun is currently the most popular "product" of the entire Xiaomi company, and his popularity has surpassed that of cars and mobile phones. This naturally makes it easy to fall into a value "misunderstanding":

Lei Jun’s personal value is far greater than the company’s creation and the products themselves.

Of course, it is not just ordinary consumers who think this way. From the current trend of bigwigs collectively imitating Lei Jun to become Internet celebrities, it is not difficult to see that something that Lei Jun himself does not want to see has happened: the value of the product and the founder has been misaligned. Many people put the marketing logic upside down, and are determined to use their own popularity and traffic to drive the market future of the product.

Take Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, who has frequently appeared on social platforms recently, as an example. It is reported that Wei Jianjun once publicly stated that improper corporate marketing led to poor sales of its Haval H6.

In the past few years, Haval H6 has indeed been the flagship model of Great Wall Motors. Data shows that the sales of the Haval brand in Great Wall Motors account for about 70% all year round, and Haval H6 accounts for about 30% to 40% of the sales of the Haval brand. At its peak, the Haval H6 series sold 580,000 units a year. In the 13 years since the product was launched, the cumulative sales of Haval H6 are about 4 million units.

This car also held the sales championship in the Chinese SUV market for 108 consecutive months.

But this year, the average monthly sales of Haval H6 has dropped to less than 20,000 units, and its ranking has plummeted. From January to April, Haval H6 sold a total of 74,000 units, less than the monthly sales in the past. Wei Jianjun seems to attribute this gap to marketing, and he started to use the Internet in order to make Haval return to its former success.

But is it really the marketing's fault? Not necessarily. The foundation of marketing should be to build good product strength first. Otherwise, the better the marketing, the faster the failure.

First of all, Great Wall's own new energy transformation has been slow. When BYD's plug-in hybrid sales have been rising for more than a year, Haval did not launch mainstream new energy products in time until September 2022, when it launched the Haval H6-PHEV.

In addition, the innovation of the Haval series has been criticized for a long time. Even the "nesting doll" car manufacturing in the early years disappointed a large number of consumers. Now with the rise of domestic new energy forces, the space for choice has increased, and it is expected that the H6 will be affected.

In fact, the decline of a company's products is a normal phenomenon. The most important thing is to rely on innovative iterative upgrades to delay this decline, rather than looking for solutions from a marketing perspective.

But unfortunately, many entrepreneurs are now being led astray by some so-called internet celebrities.

Many people over-mythologize traffic marketing and internet celebrity entrepreneurs, and even entrepreneurs themselves over-mythologize internet celebrity personalities. However, if a company, from the boss to the entire team, believes this, then the company's values ​​are unhealthy and can easily become diseased.

Lei Jun seems to be aware of this. Facing overwhelming traffic, learning to be restrained is an excellent quality for entrepreneurs. However, some entrepreneurs are still obsessed with being internet celebrities, and even become internet celebrities full-time. This is the gap.

But the problem is that many bigwigs openly worship the internet celebrity persona and tout the omnipotence of traffic, which will undoubtedly further increase the obsession of young people with the "internet celebrity dream."

Now, seeing that big guys have become internet celebrities one after another and even tell dirty jokes in front of the camera, in the minds of young people who naturally admire the strong, there will probably be more college students who want to do live streaming to sell goods.