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【中文标题】小米：苹果和三星来自中国的威胁
【原文标题】Xiaomi: China’s Threat to Apple and Samsung
【登载媒体】时代周刊
【原文作者】Kevin Kelleher
【原文链接】http://business.time.com/2013/10/14/xiaomi-chinas-threat-to-apple-and-samsung/#ixzz2hy4z6s7J
小米3手机。
你听说过小米吗？如果没有，那么你很快就会听到了。如果你听过说，那么你应该知道，这家位于北京的公司从一无所有一跃成为苹果、三星和整个手机市场的最大威胁。
这是因为小米手机采用高端配置和中端价格路线。小米手机在质量上（暂时）还不能与iPhone和三星盖世系列相提并论，但是这家公司在价格上把他们打得一败涂地，而这正式中国消费者最看重的因素之一。小米最受欢迎的米3手机采用NVIDIA Tegra 4处理器、1300万像素索尼镜头和2G内存，价格为327美元。与它相比，苹果iPhone 5S裸机在中国零售价格为866美元，三星32G盖世3售价为884美元。
小米公司在2010年创办，一年后开始推出产品。公司的名称来自一种中国谷物（或许也与一句共产主义口号有关（译者注：或许是指“小米加步枪”））。其创始人有在谷歌、微软和一家中国早期软件公司金山的就职背景。
公司的私下估算价值已经超过100亿美元——是黑莓的一倍、索尼的一半。小米在去年售出700万部手机，而今年前半年的销量就已经达到了这个数字，2013年整年的销量预计将达到2000万部。（与之相比，苹果去年卖出1.25亿部手机。）极少新兴公司能在这么短时间里取得这样的成绩。
7月份，小米开始得到了海外的关注。研究公司Canalys表示，这家公司的中国市场份额在第二季度第一次超过苹果。苹果的市场分析在一个季度中从8％跌到5％。与此同时，小米推出了红米手机。单价130美元的10万部红米手机在网上公开发售，90秒钟便销售一空。这个月，小米超过台湾的HTC，成为中国第五大智能手机公司。
去年8月，这家公司在业界掀起了更大的波澜，它从谷歌挖走了雨果•巴拉。巴拉是谷歌安卓部门的产品开发副总裁，他惊讶于这家公司如何把安卓系统与硬件完美的结合。在小米，他负责这家公司的海外扩张事务。
除了高端配置和低端价格之外，小米的成功还有其它一些因素，这家公司与中国的政府电信巨头中国移动签订了合同。中国有7.45亿电信客户（4.65亿智能手机用户）使用中国移动的3G网络。三星也与中国移动签订了协议，而苹果没有——尽管有迹象显示很快会出现变化。
小米的高管喜欢强调，公司极为关注用户体验，但与苹果的做法不同。苹果令人称道的是预测用户的需求，然后限制他们客制化产品。小米CEO雷军在今年的一次会议上说，小米强迫工程师与客户沟通，恳求他们提供反馈意见，然后在每周五更新安卓软件。
另一个与苹果策略的不同之处在于，尽管加利福尼亚库比蒂诺巨人（译者注：指苹果公司的总部）运作iTunes多年的盈利微乎其微，但廉价音乐、电影和软件的目的在于销售高利润率的设备。小米的策略类似于亚马逊。亚马逊用低于成本的价格出售Kindle，来获取市场占有率，然后使用软件和电子书内容来弥补利润率。
小米的低成本还来自其网上销售渠道。但这一点即将发生变化，它现在越来越多地在实体商店，包括它自己的零售店中销售手机。这家公司还在其它方面飞速发展。巴拉的入职表明他们很快会进入新市场，首先是台湾和香港，然后是欧洲。它已经生产出第一台智能电视——47英寸、3D屏幕，零售价格为490美元。据说它还在研制自己的智能手表。
如此凶猛的增长趋势或许会给小米带来新的挑战。我们不知道在它进入新的领域之后，是否还会强烈关注客户体验，因为每个领域都有其特殊的需求。如果失去了中国移动的支持，它能否继续保持目前的增长势头。更重要的是，凭借目前的利润率，它能否成功跻身其它国家和新产品市场。
从另一方面讲，小米有很大机会进入其它发展中国家。据ABI研究结果显示，今年的低成本智能手机运输量为2.38亿，到2018年将增长为7.58亿。而小米手机的性价比已经是人所共知的。
小米的崛起让一些证券分析人士思考，对于一个采取完全不同策略的公司，苹果将如何应对。斯坦福伯恩斯坦分析师Mark Newman在一份研究报告中，说小米是一个“新兴的破坏性力量”，“完全是一副改变游戏规则的姿态”。
与此同时，UBS分析师Steve Milunovich写道：“我不大相信苹果会因此而陷入混乱。”但他还说：“苹果有可能演化成手机的数字设备，为最高端的客户提供最先进的技术，而忽略低端市场的增长。因为苹果不会‘妥协用户体验’。”
小米内部对与苹果竞争的前景一直充满了自信，甚至是狂妄。雷在最近一次采访中说：“他们（苹果）根本不关心用户的想法，他们总是臆测用户的需求。”
原文：
Xiaomi: China’s Threat to Apple and Samsung
Why Xiaomi should worry Apple, Samsung and others
By Kevin Kelleher Oct. 14, 2013
Xiamoi's Mi3 device.
Have you heard of Xiaomi yet? If you haven’t, you probably will pretty soon. If you have, you know the Beijing-based company has come out of nowhere this year to become the biggest threat to Apple, Samsung and other smartphone makers.
That’s because Xiaomi designs its phones with high-end specs and sells them at midrange prices. Xiaomi phones can’t touch the iPhone or the Galaxy in terms of quality (yet), but the company beats them handily on price, the paramount factor for many consumers in China. Xiaomi’s popular Mi3 handset — including a Nvidia Tegra 4 chip, a 13-megapixel Sony camera and 2-gigabit RAM — sells for $327. In comparison, in China, Apple’s iPhone 5S retails for $866 without a service plan, while the Samsung’s 32GB Galaxy Note 3 retails for $884.
Founded in 2010, Xiaomi started shipping products a year later. The company’s name comes from the Chinese word for millet (and may or may not reference a communist slogan), and its founders have backgrounds at Google, Microsoft and Kingsoft, an early Chinese software company.
The company’s private valuation is already estimated to have surpassed $10 billion — double the valuation of BlackBerry and half that of Sony. Xiaomi sold 7 million handsets last year and just as many in the first half of this year, putting it on track to sell 20 million in all of 2013. (Apple, by contrast, sold 125 million phones last year.) Very few startups can claim to have reached such milestones so quickly.
Outside of China, Xiaomi began to gain notice in July, when research firm Canalys said that the company’s market share in China surpassed Apple for the first time in the second quarter. Apple’s share fell from 8% to 5% in a single quarter. Around that time, Xiaomi unveiled its Hongmi, or Red Rice, phone for around $130 and offered 100,000 handsets for sale online. It sold out in 90 seconds. This month, Xiaomi moved past Taiwan’s HTC to become the fifth largest smartphone company in China.
The company made even bigger waves in late August, when it hired Hugo Barra from Google. Barra, who was head of product development at Google’s Android unit, was impressed with how the company forked Android to its handsets. At Xiaomi, he will oversee the company’s overseas expansion.
Beyond selling high-end phones at low cost, other factors are driving Xiaomi’s success. It helps that the company has a contract with China Mobile, the country’s state-owned telecom giant. China has 745 million customers (465 million smartphones and growing), promoting its 3G network. Samsung also has deal with China Mobile, while Apple doesn’t — although there are signs that that may change soon.
Xiaomi’s executives like to stress how the company is focused on user experience, but in a way that is different from Apple. Apple famously anticipates what will work with users and limits their ability to customize the product. Xiaomi updates its Android software every Friday after urging engineers to talk with customers to solicit feedback, CEO Lei Jun said at a conference this year.
Another divergence from Apple’s strategy: while the Cupertino, Calif., giant ran iTunes for years at little or no profit — using its music, movies and apps as a way to sell higher-margin devices — Xiaomi’s approach is similar to Amazon. Amazon sells its Kindle devices at or below cost to expand market share, using apps and content revenue to shore up slim margins.
Xiaomi also kept costs low by selling its phones online. That may be changing as it sells more phones through stores, including its own retail shops. The company is evolving quickly in other ways. Barra’s hiring suggests the company will be moving into new markets soon, starting with Taiwan and Hong Kong and moving on to Europe. It’s also already produced its first smart TV— a 47-in., 3-D screen retailing for around $490. It is reportedly working on its own smart watch.
Such ambitious growth may present Xiaomi with new challenges. It’s not clear whether it can maintain its intensive focus on customer experience as it moves into new markets, each with its own peculiar needs. Or whether it can grow quickly in them without the kind of support it receives from China Mobile. Or, most importantly, whether it can grow into new countries and new product categories with its small margins.
On the other hand, Xiaomi has a huge opportunity in other developing countries. According to ABI Research, low-cost smartphone shipments will rise to 758 million units in 2018, from 238 million this year. And Xiaomi’s phones have already proved popular by offering more bang for the buck.
The rise of Xiaomi has left some securities analysts wondering about how Apple will respond to a company thriving by using strategies very different from its own. In a research note, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Mark Newman called Xiaomi a “new disruptive force” that “particularly stands out to us as a potential game-changer.”
Meanwhile, UBS analyst Steve Milunovich wrote that “it would be a bit surprising if Apple were easily disrupted.” But he also noted, “It’s possible that Apple is becoming the Digital Equipment of phones, delivering improved technology for its best customers but ignoring the growth below because the company does not want to ‘compromise the user experience.’”
For its part, Xiaomi sounds a little more confident — if not outright cocky — about its prospects against Apple. “They [Apple] don’t really care about what the users want,” Lei said in a recent interview. “They imagine what the users want.”
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