2019 is the first year of 5G in China and the first year for Xiaomi Group to implement the “mobile phone + AIoT” dual-engine strategy. At a time when the global mobile phone market has entered a shrinking cycle, the breakthrough of mobile phone manufacturers is particularly striking.
5G may be the next outlet that the industry desires. The latest research report released by the emerging device technology (EDT) research team of market research firm Strategy Analytics predicts that sales of 5G devices will take off in 2020, and 5G mobile phones will account for nearly half of all mobile phone sales within five years. The upcoming wave of 5G mobile phone replacements may inject a boost to the mobile phone market in 2020.
On the eve of the Beijing News “Looking at 2020” financial summit, Xiaomi founder, chairman and CEO Lei Jun said in an interview with the Beijing News reporter that Xiaomi will launch at least 10 5G mobile phones next year. “5G is a major opportunity for the smartphone market, and we believe there will be a wave of significant growth next year,” Lei Jun said.
In 2019, domestic mainstream mobile phone manufacturers have launched one or more 5G mobile phones, and the starting price has quickly dropped below the 4,000-yuan mark. The battle to seize the air came sooner than expected. In addition to mobile phones, diversified business has also become a new growth point that mobile phone manufacturers rely on. For Xiaomi, by the first half of this year, the revenue of IoT and consumer products business accounted for nearly 30%, and had a high growth rate of up to 44%. The characteristics of 5G’s large connection also give the AIoT business more room for imagination.
“The PC internet era has connected 1 billion devices, the mobile Internet era has connected more than 5 billion devices, and the IoT will connect a connection scale of 50 billion.” Lei Jun told the Beijing News reporter.
5G is an accelerator for the development of the digital economy
Beijing News: In the past ten years, what impressive changes have taken place in China’s Internet technology industry?
Lei Jun: The past ten years have been the ten years of the mobile Internet, and we have caught up with a “golden age” of China’s Internet development. China’s Internet technology has quickly caught up with the world’s leading level, and has become a global leader in innovation and development in many fields. In the golden age of mobile Internet, Internet technology has profoundly changed consumption and manufacturing.
Beijing News: This year is the first year of 5G commercial use. What impact do you think 5G commercial use will have on the communications and Internet industries?
Lei Jun: 5G is an accelerator for the development of the digital economy. The value of 5G is not only in making our communication faster, but also in that with the support of it and AI, the Internet of Things can truly become the next generation of super Internet, carrying the infrastructure of the digital economy. With a strong infrastructure in place, new business opportunities and experience improvements will follow.
In terms of the Internet of Things, I think the development direction of the entire Internet is the next-generation super Internet composed of 5G+AI+IoT. The PC Internet era has connected 1 billion devices, the mobile Internet era has connected more than 5 billion devices, and IoT will connect 500 million devices. billions of scale. With the advent of 5G, 5G has the characteristics of low latency, high speed, and wide connection, which can promote the rapid development of more industries, especially in the fields of smart home, 4K, 8K high-definition video, AR, VR and other fields.
Beijing News: In the 5G era, what opportunities and challenges will China’s smartphone market have?
Lei Jun: 5G is a major opportunity for the smartphone market, and we believe there will be a significant wave of growth next year.
In addition to mobile phones, the consumer-grade Internet of Things is also truly realizing the intelligent interconnection of all things in the 5G era. 5G has a very wide range of application scenarios, which can drive a comprehensive upgrade of the mass consumption experience. The deep integration of 5G with artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, Internet of Things and other technologies will bring new changes to all walks of life, creating new applications, new platforms and new manufacturing.
Beijing News: Recently, Xiaomi announced that the Yizhuang factory is about to be built. Is this factory mainly preparing for 5G?
Lei Jun: This smart factory in the 5G era is mainly an experimental factory for R&D and production of Xiaomi’s flagship mobile phones. The factory will use automated production lines, 5G networks, Robots, big data and other technologies on a large scale, so the production efficiency will be very high. It is expected to automatically produce 60 smartphones per minute, which is more than 60% more efficient than traditional factories.
The 5G road will be repaired and it will definitely be useful
Beijing News: In terms of 5G applications, which applications do you think will become the next killer application?
Lei Jun: In the lab, 5G can reach 2Gbps, which means that it only takes 15 seconds to download a 2G “chicken-eating” game, and 3 seconds to download 100 songs. So I think there is no standard answer (to this question) today, but I believe that it will be useful if the road is repaired.
Beijing News: On the battlefield of 5G, where is the next tough battle for Xiaomi mobile phones?
Lei Jun: In the next year, 5G will bring earth-shaking changes to the fields of communications, mobile Internet and AIoT. Now that 5G has just kicked off, the laying of 5G networks and the popularization of 5G terminals will arrive on a large scale next year. For us, we must actively embrace this change and increase investment in technology. The most important thing is to control the technical maturity and cost of 5G mobile phones.
The Beijing News: Global technology continues to innovate. With the gradual implementation of 5G and IoT technologies, how does Xiaomi deal with this change?
Lei Jun: At the beginning of this year, Xiaomi launched a dual-engine strategy of “mobile phone + AIoT”, and proposed “All in AIoT, investing at least 10 billion yuan in the next five years”. This is a major strategic upgrade for Xiaomi, which has already made a series of successful developments. In the field of mobile phones, we separated Xiaomi and Redmi to operate independently, and successfully achieved a series of adjustments to the brand and product lineup. A series of new products from the two brands performed well this year. Recently, we released the 5G mobile phone Xiaomi 9 Pro and our latest concept phone Xiaomi MIX Alpha in China, showing our stage answer to the wave of the communication industry and the most cutting-edge exploration of smartphones.
In the field of AIoT and smart life, Xiaomi has been developing very rapidly since the beginning of this year on the basis of maintaining its consistent leading edge. As of the first half of this year, Xiaomi’s IoT platform has connected 197 million smart devices, and it is currently the world’s leader in the field of consumer IoT. Our representative products such as smart speakers and Xiaomi TV have achieved great success, and millions of people have more than 5 products in the Xiaomi ecological chain.
Beijing News: Jinshan has also been listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board recently. How has your experience working in Jinshan influenced you?
Lei Jun: “Jinshan is a company with dreams.” This is something I often say in Jinshan. Kingsoft’s dream is to use technology to improve and serve the whole world. People are great because of their dreams, no matter who you are, as long as you have a dream, you can become a great person. At Xiaomi, I also adhere to such a value. At the same time, Kingsoft has a strong engineer culture. From the first day of its establishment, Kingsoft has attached great importance to talents, inheritance and benefit sharing. We are well aware of the importance of talents and inheritance; and only by sharing benefits, can the innovation team become the real master of technological innovation, and can talents gather and guarantee inheritance.
Continuous innovation and quality improvement can promote high-quality economic development
Beijing News: You have witnessed the history of China’s Internet industry for more than 30 years, how do you feel?
Lei Jun: I have gone through the entire process from general software to the Internet to mobile Internet entrepreneurship. Now I am looking forward to the next-generation super Internet composed of “AI+IoT” under the blessing of 5G.
During this process, I realized that adhering to the correct values and learning to adapt to the times are of great significance to the company’s vitality and long-term development. I once said, “Standing on the wind, pigs can take off”, this sentence actually caused a lot of misunderstandings. It is extremely difficult to continuously find new vents, stand on top of the vents first, and maintain the balance of one’s body in the wind. With the rapid development of the Internet, we must always concentrate on the strength and meticulousness of elephant dancing. , but also to have a correct value judgment. This value judgment, I personally think, is the reverence for technology, the belief in transparency and equality, the unremitting pursuit of efficiency and experience, and the respect and desire for the enthusiasm for innovation and entrepreneurship that the Internet brings to all of us.
Beijing News: What suggestions do you have for promoting the high-quality development of the real economy?
Lei Jun: I think the development of the real economy requires a pioneering and enterprising spirit of innovation to promote technological innovation, management innovation, and model innovation. In particular, we must attach importance to the use of Internet thinking and methods to improve efficiency. The government work report released at the National Two Sessions at the beginning of the year has repeatedly mentioned and emphasized “Internet +”, which is a huge recognition of the new technologies and new models behind “Internet +”. We will build an Industrial Internet platform, expand “intelligence +”, empower the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, and allow more users around the world to choose Chinese manufacturing and Chinese services.
In my opinion, as important as innovation is quality. I have two words in Xiaomi: use a telescope to see innovation, and use a microscope to see quality; innovation determines how high we can fly, and quality determines how far we can fly. Quality has always been the lifeline of Xiaomi, and the “craftsman spirit” is essential for the upgrading and transformation of Chinese manufacturing. For people who make products, the “craftsman spirit” is to work hard with real materials, and to do well in places where users can’t see or even rarely use them. I firmly believe that as more and more companies continue to improve product quality, China’s economy will surely achieve high-quality development.
We have built hard power made in China with innovation and quality, and I think we also need to develop soft power. This soft power is mainly the ability to design and improve the user experience. We are a big manufacturing country in the world. To become a powerful manufacturing country in the world, we must have the right to speak in the design field and cultivate design talents. I think that only when the design is done well can Chinese brands truly become Chinese business cards.
Beijing News: How do you understand the relationship between the Internet and the real economy?
Lei Jun: When I founded Xiaomi in 2010, I was thinking that China’s manufacturing industry is not incapable of making good things. The main problem is how to improve quality and efficiency. So I decided to use the Internet model to do the real economy, and I chose the most complex and difficult mobile phone industry at first. In recent years, we have become the pioneers of the Internet of Things era and smart life. It took four years to build the world’s largest consumer IoT from scratch. Now, Xiaomi not only has mobile phones, but also countless smart products such as TVs, speakers, air conditioners, washing machines, etc. Our business model and business practices are also influencing and changing many industries, making these industries aware of the value and role of Internet thinking , which led to the improvement of business operation efficiency and product user experience.
【Quotations】
The value of 5G is not only in making our communication faster, but also in that with the support of it and AI, the Internet of Things can truly become the next generation of super Internet, carrying the infrastructure of the digital economy.
●5G is a major opportunity for the smartphone market, and we believe there will be a significant wave of growth next year.
●With the rapid development of the Internet, we must always pay attention to it, we must have the power and meticulousness of the elephant dancing, and we must also have the correct value judgment.
●Use a telescope to see innovation, and use a microscope to see quality; innovation determines how high we can fly, and quality determines how far we can fly.
●For those who make products, the “craftsman spirit” is to work hard with real materials, and to do well in places where users can’t see or even rarely use them.
●5G will bring earth-shaking changes in the fields of communications, mobile Internet and AIoT in the coming year. Now that 5G has just kicked off, the laying of 5G networks and the popularization of 5G terminals will arrive on a large scale next year.
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