Lei Jun and Zhou Hongyi battle against each other: Can Xiaomi defeat 360 again?

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Three years ago, Qihoo 360 launched a special-purpose phone to challenge Xiaomi, but ultimately failed due to various reasons. Today, 360 has made a comeback and teamed up with Coolpad to launch a new mobile phone brand "Qiku". Can it still threaten Xiaomi's position?

Regarding 360's re-entry, Xiaomi Chairman Lei Jun (Weibo) publicly stated today that "the market is huge and everyone has the opportunity to succeed." But as we all know, Xiaomi and 360 have been fierce rivals in recent years. Lei Jun and Zhou Hongyi (Weibo) were also tit-for-tat in their respective speeches today, and the atmosphere was full of gunpowder.

Before 360 ​​and Coolpad held their mobile phone brand launch conferences, Xiaomi released the top-end version of Xiaomi Note this morning. Lei Jun introduced the various functions and configurations of the phone in detail, calling it the most beautifully designed, most sophisticatedly crafted, and most powerful Xiaomi phone to date. Obviously, this has also created a threshold for the "Qiku" that has not yet been released.

In terms of configuration, the top-end version of Xiaomi Note is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 octa-core 64-bit processor, 4GB LPDDR4 memory, Sharp/JDI customized screen, 5.7-inch 2K sunlight screen, 13-megapixel optical image stabilization camera and Qualcomm ISP image processor, etc. Lei Jun particularly emphasized some details, such as Xiaomi uses the best third version V2.1 of Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor, and the 4GB LPDDR4 memory used is 1.7 times faster than LPDDR3.

Lei Jun also emphasized that although the improvements in these configuration details have brought about a substantial increase of about 30% to 90% in their respective costs, the final price of the Xiaomi Note top-end version, priced at 2,999 yuan, insists on a pricing strategy that is close to cost - the configuration positioning of 360's new mobile phone Qiku is still unknown, and the slogan of the highest cost-effectiveness has also become a line of defense that Lei Jun has set for Xiaomi in advance.

As for why Xiaomi can sell its products at low prices, Lei Jun claimed that the cheapness is due to model innovation, such as direct sales through e-commerce, social media marketing, and full-process sales, so the mobile phones can be priced close to cost.

"I think Mr. Lei (Lei Jun) is the number one marketer in China. He is the most powerful marketing master in our country." Zhou Hongyi responded at the brand launch conference of 360 and Coolpad's subsidiaries in the afternoon, saying that Xiaomi is not selling futures but has insufficient production capacity. The production capacity of 360 and Coolpad ensures that competitors will no longer dare to engage in hunger marketing.

Zhou Hongyi placed his expectations for the new mobile phone company on the production capacity of its partner Coolpad, and also claimed that Qihoo was ready to set aside a portion of its equity for equity crowdfunding. Obviously, this was also a means for 360 to try to obtain external support.

Previously, when the industry analyzed the reasons for the failure of 360's special-purpose machines, it mainly attributed them to the lack of voice in the product, the lack of deeply developed UI, the lack of a mature Internet marketing system and fan culture, etc. This is also a difficult problem that 360 must solve in its second attack.

From the perspective of cost performance, the disadvantage of being a latecomer may cause trouble for 360. According to Lei Jun, Xiaomi ranked first in the domestic market in terms of shipments in the first quarter of this year, and sold 61.12 million units last year. The scale and the right to speak in the industry chain ensure the feasibility of low prices for products. 360 is currently in the stage of climbing from scratch, and obviously needs to find a way and angle to deal with Xiaomi that suits itself.

As early as three years ago, Zhou Hongyi publicly pointed out that the cost of Xiaomi 1 was only 900 yuan before the release of the special edition machine, which caused a lot of trouble for Xiaomi and Lei Jun at that time. How will Zhou Hongyi cause trouble for Xiaomi with the upcoming launch of Qiku? All these remain to be further observed. The only thing that is certain is that for consumers, full competition has made it increasingly cheaper for users to obtain higher quality smartphones.