Lei Jun, who wanted to reverse the market with Xiaomi 6, may have misunderstood the true meaning of OPPO's success model

The Xiaomi flagship Mi 5, which debuted last year, had a very low visibility in reality, which means that the Mi 6, which was released today, has more responsibilities and is more responsible for Xiaomi's market reversal.

Data shows that in 2016, Xiaomi’s smartphone sales fell 36% year-on-year. With annual shipments of 41.5 million units, Xiaomi lost its position in the top five global sales and its domestic market share also dropped to fifth.

Therefore, today's Xiaomi 6 not only needs to arouse the enthusiasm of fans, but also needs to verify whether Xiaomi has the ability to sell products well.

But now it seems that the Xiaomi Mi 6, which still emphasizes the running score, may not satisfy Lei Jun's wish. Although Lei Jun repeatedly criticized OPPO at the press conference, Xiaomi may have learned the wrong way in the road of learning from the enemy to defeat the enemy. After all, OPPO's strength has never been the running score, but the super control of offline market channels.

Can the conventional Xiaomi Mi 6 support the new price of 2,499 yuan?

There is no doubt that Xiaomi Mi 6 is still a very qualified flagship phone. Just like Xiaomi Mi 4 and Xiaomi Mi 5, it meets all the expectations of Mi fans for an annual flagship phone.

This includes the most powerful Qualcomm processor Snapdragon 835 that Xiaomi can currently use, dual cameras that are in line with the trend of the times, and continued pursuit of highlights in design and mobile phone materials. For example, the stainless steel of Xiaomi 4 and the use of ceramics in Xiaomi 5, the Xiaomi 6 has inherited and echoed this with four curved surfaces.

But on the whole, after leaving the task of stunning the market to concept products like Xiaomi MIX, Xiaomi 6 is still another Xiaomi phone that follows the industry's upgrading rules. The only difference from the conventional pricing of 1,999 yuan is that after Lei Jun described a bunch of reasons for the cost increase at the press conference, he set the price of Xiaomi 6 at a starting point of 2,499 yuan.

A mobile phone manufacturer that has been selling its flagship phone for 7 years at 1,999 yuan announced a 25% price increase, which naturally aroused people's desire for more product highlights. Unfortunately, Xiaomi was not really prepared for something similar this time. The Xiaomi 6 Bright Silver Explorer Edition, which dazzled the whole audience, was also labeled by Lei Jun as "RMB 100,000" and "cannot be mass-produced".

We can certainly understand the price increase of Xiaomi 6, which is intended to further widen the positioning gap between the "Xiaomi" and "Redmi" product lines. However, it is still unknown whether the more expensive Xiaomi 6 will be more popular in the market than the previous Mi phones that did not perform well.

Lei Jun strongly criticized OPPO: Brands that can run scores may not necessarily sell products

A very interesting phenomenon is that OPPO, a competitor that is seen as not caring about hardware configuration, has appeared many times in the PPT of Xiaomi 6 press conference, which pays great attention to hardware configuration. Lei Jun even compared the flagship products of the two with his usual running points method, and was full of confidence when he saw Xiaomi 6 leading by more than 100,000 points.

As for why Xiaomi has set its sights on OPPO, it is obvious that Xiaomi wants to achieve sales like OPPO, an industry secret that allows it to sell its products at high prices even if they have average configurations.

As we all know, 2016, the year when Xiaomi's mobile phone sales suffered a setback, was the year when OPPO and mobile phone manufacturers that developed in the OPPO model rose against the trend. "My mobile phone has powerful performance and high running points, why can't my sales volume compete with yours?" may be the subtext that Lei Jun really wanted to express at the press conference.

However, contrary to expectations, performance is no longer a pain point for users. The gap between the Xiaomi model and the OPPO model is also the real reason why Xiaomi has been at a disadvantage in the market recently. Xiaomi has always had a fever concept that few people can match, but OPPO dominates the market with "non-fever" products, which inevitably makes Xiaomi look sideways.

For example, before the release of Xiaomi 6, many Mi fans flooded Lei Jun's Weibo with the word "in stock", reflecting the biggest helplessness of Xiaomi's mobile phone development. In comparison, many people in the industry may still remember that OPPO R9S had millions of in stock ready for the first day of sale, which was enough to lead many mobile phone brands at the starting line.

In addition, the layout of offline channels and brand promotion similar to the OPPO model has also contributed to the gap that Internet mobile phone brands represented by Xiaomi will find difficult to catch up in the short term.

Xiaomi has indeed been building brand physical stores in China's central cities recently, but when it comes to third- and fourth-tier cities, or even rural markets, which have greater market potential, the time for Internet brands to penetrate on a large scale is clearly a long way off.

Different from the perspective of mobile phone enthusiasts and Mi fans, excellent products are only the necessary foundation for the development of an enterprise, and market strategy is the long-term vitality of a mobile phone brand.

There is no doubt that Xiaomi Mi 6 is Xiaomi’s top product, or it can be said that it is a top-notch product among the current domestic flagship phones. However, the biggest problem Xiaomi is facing now is not whether it can make a product that is competitive in the market.

In this era when the development of smartphone hardware has hit a ceiling, mobile phone experiences are becoming more homogenized, and the competition behind product hardware is increasingly decisive in influencing the market rankings of mobile phone brands.

Unfortunately, from the launch of Xiaomi 6, we saw that Xiaomi is still the Xiaomi that believes that "running points can solve everything".

Compared with Xiaomi in 2016, Xiaomi in 2017 has not made any progress.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.