Good evening, everyone. Thank you for coming to hear my speech.
The year 2020 has been extraordinary, with the entire world facing enormous challenges. This sweeping global upheaval has profoundly affected every one of our lives. Everyone is asking, "What should I do in the face of all this?" Many people feel anxious, and I do too.
But anxiety is no use. There are many things in this world that we cannot change, but we can change our own state of mind. Only by resolving to change our mindset can we face this complex world with a positive attitude.
I chose the simplest possible way to make a change: walking.
I set myself a goal of walking ten kilometers a day for a month. It was an ambitious target for me, and I was afraid I might not manage it.
But that did not matter. Keep walking toward the sun, and you will rediscover inner peace and a warm source of motivation. With every step forward, your passion and courage grow a little stronger.
I kept walking, and last month I actually covered 318.11 kilometers.
I walked for an average of one hour and fifty minutes a day, covering an average of 10.5 kilometers. I achieved a goal that had seemed incredible. This year marks Xiaomi's tenth anniversary. We had planned a grand celebration, but the pandemic forced us to cancel it.
Life still needs a sense of ceremony, and even more, it needs to be faced with a positive spirit.
So I decided to give a speech to commemorate this important day. It is also a complete report to all the friends who care about Xiaomi.
01 The Beginning of the Dream
Ten years ago, a group of friends and I founded Xiaomi.
1.1 Our Dream
At the time, China's mobile phone market had international giants such as Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung; major domestic manufacturers known collectively as the "China Cool Alliance," including ZTE and Huawei; and an overwhelming number of knockoff phones. International giants dominated the Chinese market and charged outrageous prices, while domestic phones were generally mediocre.
As both a phone enthusiast and an entrepreneur, I was not willing to accept that. Although I had never made a phone before, we formed this dream:
"Make the best phones in the world, sell them for half the price, and make them affordable to everyone."
For an outsider who had never made a phone, and for a small Zhongguancun startup beginning from scratch, making the world's best phone was anything but easy.
How could we achieve a goal that sounded so unrealistic?
I had a wild idea: these giants were all hardware companies. What if we built phones using an internet model?
By integrating software, hardware, and internet services, we could take a different path and attack from another dimension. I did find a shortcut of sorts: Motorola had the best hardware at the time, Microsoft had the best software, and Google was the strongest internet company. If I could bring together top people from all three, we might master our own "triathlon."
1.2 Finding the Right People
The first person I approached was Lin Bin, then vice president of the Google China Institute of Engineering.
By coincidence, he was considering leaving to start an online music company. I told him, "Forget that. Come do something big with me." I drew the "triathlon" diagram on a napkin, and he quickly agreed. That made him Xiaomi's second employee.
Recruiting him so smoothly was a fluke. I then approached ten Google engineers in a row without convincing a single one. It was truly discouraging, until the eleventh. He was Hong Feng, an outstanding Google engineer.
Hong Feng opened by asking me three questions.
His first question was, "Have you ever made a phone?" "No." His second was, "Do you know Wang Jianzhou, the head of China Mobile?" "No." His third was, "Do you know Terry Gou?" "Terry Gou? I know who he is, but he does not know me."
After those three questions, I thought I had no chance. Out of politeness, however, I kept the awkward conversation going for a long time. At last, he summed it up: "It sounds unreliable... but it might be worth a try." I instantly breathed a huge sigh of relief. I had finally won him over. It felt like winning the lottery. He was the second person I recruited from Google.
Why should anyone believe an outsider who wanted to make phones? While I was interviewing talented people, they were interviewing me as well.
During Xiaomi's first year, I spent 80 percent of my time recruiting.
The most memorable candidate was someone I spoke with more than ten times over two months, with several conversations lasting ten hours each.
Many business founders and entrepreneurs have asked me how to recruit people. I also constantly hear people complain that they cannot find the right talent. It is an extremely common problem.
Recruiting is certainly not easy. If you cannot find the right people, there is really only one reason: you have not spent enough time on it.
My advice is this:
Recruiting does not call for three visits to the thatched cottage; it calls for thirty. With enough determination and enough time, you can build an excellent team.
02
Riding the Wind and Breaking the Waves
2.1 The Story of MIUI
On April 6, a dozen or so of us shared a bowl of millet porridge and began our revolution.
We did not understand hardware? No problem. We would start with software and build an operating system first.
We had no phone of our own for development? No problem. We would begin by developing for other companies' phones.
An operating system was highly complex? No problem. We would find an open source system and build on top of it.
Android was just getting started, and we became one of the earliest teams in China to work on it. But an operating system was still an operating system: the engineering workload was enormous, far beyond what a small team of a dozen people could handle.
No problem. We only needed to perfect the most commonly used features first: phone calls, text messages, contacts, and the home screen. These were the four most important smartphone functions at the time. In this way, we radically simplified an extraordinarily complex systems engineering project.
And so, in just two months, the first version of MIUI was actually finished.
We created a forum and recruited volunteers to flash the software onto their phones. To our great surprise and gratitude, one hundred users were willing to take the considerable risk of installing MIUI. They became the people we know as the "one hundred sponsors of our dream."
To thank these one hundred brave users, we put their names on the startup screen.
On August 16, 2010, the first version of MIUI was officially released.
At first there were only one hundred users, an astonishingly small number, but the reviews were excellent.
We did no promotion at all. The number doubled to two hundred in the second week, doubled again to four hundred in the third, and doubled once more to eight hundred in the fourth.
MIUI truly took off a month after its release. On September 20, a prominent contributor on the internationally renowned technology forum XDA enthusiastically recommended it.
He wrote: "This is the work of a professional team, and it is stunning... Has anyone heard of this ROM? I have never seen such a crazy ROM in my life... It runs fast and smoothly, and the entire interface has been redesigned. This is incredible."
That review tells you how good the first version of MIUI was.
A small Zhongguancun team used an internet approach to build a mobile operating system in two months, and it received tremendous acclaim. This fully demonstrated the power of internet methodology.
From then on, MIUI began gaining popularity among enthusiasts around the world. Users in many countries spontaneously formed local Mi Fan communities, created local language packs, and adapted MIUI to different phone models. It grew into a vast global grassroots movement and planted the seeds of Xiaomi's international expansion. That was the origin of Mi Fan culture.
We built MIUI according to the seven-character internet formula: focus, perfection, reputation, and speed.
In less than a year, MIUI had more than 300,000 users.
2.2 The Story of Making Phones
- How did we secure Sharp displays? After tremendous effort, we assembled the best hardware team we could find, mainly from Motorola, and happily set out to make a phone.
The moment we got started, however, we hit a major obstacle: we suddenly discovered that we could not secure the supply chain.
If we wanted to make the best phones, of course we needed the best suppliers. For the display, for example, we wanted to use Sharp's, but Sharp would not even talk to us.
Only then did I realize that a startup could not gain access to the top supply chain simply by offering money.
To secure the display we wanted so badly, I mobilized every connection I had to reach Sharp. We took an enormous detour, going through Kingsoft's Japanese subsidiary to Mitsui, and then asking senior Mitsui executives to help us win an opportunity to speak with Sharp headquarters. The meeting was set for March 26.
Then something momentous happened: on March 11, 2011, Japan was struck by an earthquake and a nuclear power plant leaked radiation, alarming the entire world.
What should we do? Should we go or not? Sharp's headquarters was in Osaka, where the effects of the radiation were limited, but it was radiation all the same, and everyone was frightened.
The opportunity to meet Sharp's senior executives was simply too rare. We resolved to fly to Osaka, and in the end three of us founders went together.
Only after boarding did we discover that we were the only three passengers in the entire cabin. When we reached Sharp, the whole building was deserted, and we were the only group of visitors. Our sincerity won Sharp over.
We were so nervous that day that we hardly took any photographs. I found only one, showing Liu De outside the Sharp building.
- How We Arrived at RMB 1,999
Everyone knows that the first Xiaomi phone was priced at RMB 1,999. What people do not know is that our original plan was RMB 1,499. The crowd was already electrified by RMB 1,999. Would RMB 1,499 not have blown the roof off?
We planned for a cost of RMB 1,500 and a selling price of RMB 1,499, and boldly predicted that we could sell 300,000 units.
But in August, the team gave me a shocking piece of news: the costs had run over budget. Each phone would cost about RMB 2,000, RMB 500 more than planned.
The main reason was that we had chosen high quality suppliers. We were fortunate they were willing to work with us at all, so there was no room to negotiate prices.
If we kept the price at RMB 1,499, we estimated that we would lose RMB 200 million. What could we do?
I discussed it with our shareholders. They told me that this was the price of admission for an outsider entering the business. But the ticket was far too expensive, and I could not sleep for several nights.
Could we raise the price to RMB 1,999? None of us felt confident. The average domestic phone cost only RMB 700. If our very first phone sold for RMB 1,999, would it be a disaster? We had no choice but to take the plunge and try.
The launch was scheduled for August 16, 2011. The day before, we were still wondering whether it would fail and whether the phones would sell. When I arrived at the venue that day, I was completely unprepared for what I saw: layer upon layer of people packed the place, and I could not even squeeze inside. The Mi Fans were incredibly enthusiastic.
In the end, I called four colleagues to help push me through the crowd. With five minutes left before the scheduled start, I had just sat down when Ali ran over and said, "There are simply too many people. If more squeeze in, someone may get hurt. Shall we start right away?" This was Xiaomi's first product launch and the only one in its history to begin five minutes early.
Even when I began speaking onstage, I still felt uneasy. Finally, in a state of extreme nervousness, I announced the price of RMB 1,999.
The audience cheered and screamed for a full thirty seconds. At last, the weight lifted from my heart. We had done it.
Recently, we found a video that a colleague recorded on a phone at the venue. It is a little blurry, but let us take a look.
After the phone was launched, online customers reserved 300,000 units in the first round.
The orders left us both excited and troubled. We did not have enough money or enough production capacity.
We were a small company with no trade credit, so we had to pay in advance before production could begin. Producing 300,000 phones at once required an astronomical sum. Xiaomi phones were incredibly popular, but we could not supply enough. We were soon labeled practitioners of "hunger marketing," which was deeply unfair.
The first generation phone ultimately sold more than seven million units. It was nothing short of a miracle.
The First Redmi Was Not Really the First Redmi
At that point, the relevant government authorities gave us a new challenge: Xiaomi phones were so popular, so could we help drive the development of China's domestic supply chain?
We were still a newly founded small company. Could we carry such a heavy responsibility? We decided not to overthink it and to get moving. At the beginning of 2012, we formulated the "Redmi Plan."
The Redmi Plan meant selecting the best of China's domestic supply chain to make a phone for everyone.
The domestic supply chain was not yet mature. I was deeply dissatisfied with our first product and decided to scrap it and start over.
That meant writing off RMB 40 million in research and development costs.
The phone everyone knows as the first Redmi was actually our second design, code-named H2.
On July 31, 2013, the Redmi phone was officially released.
At the time, we borrowed a conference room from Kingsoft. There were no decorations at all, just a backdrop.
It was the simplest launch event in Xiaomi's history. Redmi carried tremendous force: as soon as it launched, it sent shockwaves through the industry. To our surprise, even Kingsoft's share price rose the next day.
The first Redmi was far more popular than we had imagined, selling 44.6 million units. In 2013, those more than forty million smartphones gave a powerful boost to the development of China's domestic supply chain.
Behind the enormous early success of Xiaomi's phone business were countless difficult choices:
Should we risk exposure to radiation and travel to Japan to win over Sharp?
Should we raise the price from RMB 1,499 to RMB 1,999?
Should we kill the first Redmi we had already developed and start all over again?
Every one of these choices involved enormous risk.
No success is ever achieved without taking risks. Face the risks head-on and give it everything you have.
2.3 Everyone Studies Xiaomi
Once Xiaomi became successful, an interesting phenomenon appeared: people everywhere began studying Xiaomi intensely.
Many internet phone brands emerged at the time.
We did not know how they were copying us until Wang Xiaoyan, the founder of Little Pepper, joined Xiaomi. At an internal discussion, he described how he had studied us. His many superficial and sometimes wildly inaccurate imitations had everyone roaring with laughter. Yet even copying only the outward form proved surprisingly effective at the time.
2.4 The Story of the Ecosystem
Wang Xiaoyan learned on his own, while many other founders and business leaders came to Xiaomi in person to study what we did.
We were also very willing to share our experience publicly, hoping to promote change across more industries. In 2014, we launched our ecosystem program to incubate more startups.
In just six years, we incubated more than one hundred ecosystem companies and created over a thousand dazzling, high quality products.
How did we do it? Let me give you an example.
At the time, Chinese tourists were rushing to Japan to buy rice cookers, turning it into a social phenomenon. I found this unbelievable. China was the factory of the world, so how could we fail to make a good rice cooker?
We therefore decided to incubate a startup focused on premium rice cookers. After a year and a half of development, our rice cooker was successfully launched and caused a sensation.
A Japanese television station specifically bought several units and conducted a street blind test against premium Japanese rice cookers. The result was astonishing: we won six to four. Yet our product cost only one fifth as much as comparable Japanese models. Later, our rice cookers were sold in Japan, where they became very popular.
03
An Unexpected Turnaround
3.1 About Dong Mingzhu
Those were bright and glorious days.
Looking back, we also did quite a few foolish things, such as making a bet with Dong Mingzhu.
On December 12, 2013, I was named one of CCTV's Economic Figures of the Year, then the highest honor available to a Chinese entrepreneur. Dong Mingzhu of Gree was another recipient.
Backstage at the awards ceremony, the director arranged for Sister Dong and me to appear together and encouraged us to make the atmosphere livelier. The director specifically mentioned that Jack Ma and Wang Jianlin had made a bet at the previous year's ceremony, creating a huge impact.
I immediately understood his idea. Gree represented China's traditional manufacturing sector and had thirty years of history. Xiaomi represented the new economy and was a small company just over three years old. Putting us together would make a great topic of conversation.
I said to Sister Dong, "Why don't we make a bet too? Let us wager one yuan on whether Xiaomi's revenue can surpass Gree's within five years." I thought it was only a joke to liven things up. Gree was a giant with revenue of more than RMB 120 billion, while Xiaomi's revenue was only RMB 20 billion, a mere fraction of theirs. Sister Dong agreed without a moment's thought.
But the instant she stepped onstage, Sister Dong declared, "If we are going to bet, let us bet one billion yuan." I was stunned. That was not in the script. A one-yuan bet would liven up the atmosphere, but a billion yuan was outrageous.
Sure enough, it immediately became a national talking point. Online commenters quickly informed me, "This is gambling for an enormous sum and may be illegal." I knew it was a joke, and everyone else thought it was a joke too. Sister Dong, however, took it seriously and brought us up every so often on all sorts of occasions.
I could hardly bear all the attention she paid us. What do you think I was supposed to do?
After that, whenever Sister Dong and I appeared together, friends in the media would photograph us intently from every possible angle.
And, of course, you could never imagine how those pictures turned out.
With the whole country taking it so seriously, we had to take it seriously too.
Over the five years, Xiaomi's revenue rose eightfold, from more than RMB 20 billion to RMB 174.9 billion. That was already a miracle, and I was extremely pleased. Now look at Gree: its revenue grew 60 percent, from RMB 120 billion to RMB 198 billion, an outstanding performance for a traditional manufacturer. But when the final results were compared, we still lost.
The dramatic part is that Xiaomi overtook Gree the year after the bet ended.
Even so, whenever I remember that wager, I regret it terribly. Why did we provoke Sister Dong and bring ourselves so much trouble? Only recently did I finally understand: at the time, we were bursting with confidence and had indeed become overinflated. Xiaomi soon encountered a great many growing pains.
That wager deepened my understanding of manufacturing and also taught me more about Gree. Gree truly is a model of Chinese manufacturing and deserves our earnest study.
3.2 Falling into a Slump
By the end of 2015, the many problems concealed by our earlier hypergrowth suddenly erupted all at once.
In the phone industry, no company had ever managed to reverse a decline in sales. Xiaomi had reached a matter of life and death.
The situation was extremely grave, and I had no choice but to take personal charge of the phone division.
That period was agonizing. I often started work at nine in the morning and was still in meetings at one or two the next morning. One day, as I left work, I counted them up and found that I had attended twenty-three meetings in a single day. It was unbelievable.
3.3 The Story of MIX
Xiaomi MIX was launched on October 25, 2016. The instant MIX's screen lit up for the first time, its full-screen display astonished everyone.
Xiaomi MIX was also collected by three of the world's leading design museums.
The director of Design Museum Finland said, "Xiaomi MIX points the way toward the future of smartphones."
Xiaomi ushered in the era of full-screen phones. The release of MIX sounded the first call of Xiaomi's turnaround.
MIX grew out of a casual conversation among several Xiaomi engineers in early 2014: "What will the phones of the future look like?"
After repeated discussion, everyone reached the same conclusion: the entire front of the phone would be a screen. The idea was revolutionary at the time. They came to discuss it with me, and I approved the project immediately: this was a remarkable idea. Do not worry about mass production, time, or investment. Keep going until it is made.
MIX succeeded because of Xiaomi's strong internal engineering culture. Engineers are Xiaomi's most important asset. To keep the torch of engineering innovation and exploration burning ever brighter, we established the Xiaomi Technology Award. It is Xiaomi's highest internal honor, recognizing technical teams that make breakthrough contributions with stock worth one million US dollars.
Let me take this opportunity to advertise for Xiaomi's research and development team. If you love technology and have strong technical skills, you are welcome to come to Xiaomi and realize your dreams.
3.4 About Quality
Value for money is our most powerful weapon, but it is also our most vulnerable weakness.
Chinese consumers hold a deeply rooted belief that cheap products cannot be good. That makes Xiaomi easy to misunderstand and gives competitors an easy way to smear us. How can Xiaomi remain invincible over the long journey ahead? We must create excellent products with world-class quality.
Improving quality is a long, arduous, and tedious process, so I will not go into the details.
Hard work brings rewards. In 2018, Xiaomi won first prize in the China Association for Quality's Quality Technology Awards. In 2019, I was also honored as China's Quality Professional of the Year.
After working hard to make up its shortcomings, Xiaomi began a remarkable turnaround in the second quarter of 2017 and returned to rapid growth.
04
The Changing International Landscape
4.1 One Billion Yuan in Inventory
Xiaomi began expanding internationally very early. Let me tell you the story of that expansion.
In the third quarter of 2014, Xiaomi phones reached number one in China. Shipments in China alone made us the world's third-largest phone maker. Investors were highly optimistic about Xiaomi at the time, but they raised a very pointed question: could the Xiaomi model be replicated around the world? We entered the Indian market in June 2014, advanced at tremendous speed, and quickly became its brightest new star.
Before long, we ran into trouble. We launched Mi 4 in July 2014, and it sold extremely well in China, with demand constantly exceeding supply. Do you still remember "austenitic 304 stainless steel" and "the artistic journey of a steel plate"?
Our newly formed team in India was extremely optimistic and persuaded me to give special approval for 500,000 units. The flagship phone was launched in India in January 2015. No one expected that it simply would not sell.
Repeated reviews afterward made the problem clear: we had just entered the market, with neither our brand nor our channels ready, yet we had ordered 500,000 flagship phones. It was terrifying.
Inventory worth one billion yuan was a devastating blow to our fledgling Indian business.
I was stunned when I heard the news. Could we ship the phones back to China? But they were the 3G version of Mi 4, and China's market already belonged entirely to 4G phones. What could we do?
We rapidly assembled a firefighting team to search the world for 3G markets that could absorb the inventory. The team began with only three people and traveled through fifty or sixty countries, from Southeast Asia to South America and from Europe to the Middle East.
Xiaomi was not as well known overseas then as it is today. After having countless doors slammed in their faces, our colleagues finally opened a path. Three kinds of partners chose to work with us: oil and natural gas traders who wanted to enter the phone business, computer sellers who now wanted to sell phones, and second-tier distributors willing to take a chance on us. Together with this group of partners, we fought our way into the global phone market.
After more than a year of relentless effort, we finally cleared most of that crushing one-billion-yuan inventory, though at a severe loss.
Misfortune may be a blessing in disguise. That firefighting operation brought an unexpected reward: the channels it opened became the advance guard of our international business and greatly accelerated our global expansion.
4.2 R U OK
The road to international expansion had its setbacks, but it also brought moments of joy. One example was "R U OK."
At a launch event we held in India in 2015, a large crowd of Mi Fans created an incredibly lively atmosphere.
My colleagues made a last-minute arrangement for me to come out and say hello. In my excitement, I blurted out, "R U OK?"
The crowd instantly erupted.
To my surprise, the video made its way back to China and immediately became a trending topic.
A creator on Bilibili even made an autotuned remix, turning me into a famous singer on the platform.
Our marketing colleagues were a little nervous at first, but I thought it was fine. As long as everyone was happy.
The episode did cause me quite a bit of trouble. As a distinguished alumnus of Wuhan University, I have had to explain everywhere ever since that Wuhan University is a perfectly legitimate university. I was the one who failed to learn English well; it was not Wuhan University that failed to teach me.
Today, Xiaomi operates in more than ninety countries and regions, and its phone business ranks among the top five in fifty of them. We have focused on Europe over the past two years, and this year we received wonderful news: we now rank third in Europe. We have even reached number one in Spain and number two in France.
After experiencing all these ups and downs, you come to understand:
Success is often not something you can plan, and a crisis can be an opportunity you never imagined.
05
Defining Moments
5.1 Three Unforgettable Defining Moments
- Going Public
As we mark ten years of entrepreneurship, three unforgettable defining moments stand out.
The first, of course, was going public.
The most memorable part of the entire listing process was the matter of five percent.
On April 25, 2018, shortly before Xiaomi's initial public offering, I held a launch event at Wuhan University and announced a board resolution: Xiaomi's overall net profit margin on hardware would never exceed five percent. If it ever did, the amount above five percent would be returned in full to our users.
A company was about to go public, yet instead of selling investors a grand vision on its roadshow, it was limiting its own profit margin. Had we lost our minds?
After Xiaomi went public, it became a public company, and capital markets would inevitably pressure it to generate excess profits. I was confident that I could withstand such pressure. But I was especially worried about one question: if one day I were no longer CEO, would Xiaomi's management still insist on making excellent products that move people's hearts and are honestly priced?
After thinking it through, I saw only one solution: enshrine the mission in a legal document and permanently limit the net profit margin on hardware. When I presented the idea to the team, the colleagues who had fought alongside me gave it their full support.
But when I raised it with our shareholders, the room exploded with concern, especially about its effect on the share price. One person said, "Are you out of your minds? Do you still want to go public?" Another said, "This is not what you told us at the beginning. If I had known, I would never have invested." Still another said, "It is too late. Stop making trouble."
We held many emergency conference calls, and several times the discussions nearly broke down. I told them, "Excellent companies earn profits; great companies win people's hearts. If you agree, what you own will be a company destined for greatness."
That settled it. The shareholders agreed.
When we announced the resolution, my social media feed was flooded with "5%."
We received tremendous praise along with plenty of mockery and doubt, but none of that mattered anymore.
- Buying a Home in Beijing
The second unforgettable event was our move into a technology park of our own.
Xiaomi Science and Technology Park officially opened last July, giving us our own home for the first time. We were tremendously excited. To us, the campus was magnificent, and we affectionately called it "Qinghe Sanlitun."
I wrote a special post on Weibo.
It said: "After drifting in Beijing and working hard for more than nine years, we have finally bought a home: eight buildings, 340,000 square meters, and a construction cost of RMB 5.2 billion."
The post immediately went viral and received as many as thirty-three million views. It seems that everyone who has moved to Beijing in pursuit of a dream longs to own a home.
What I never expected was that real estate agents would be even more excited than I was. They reposted it everywhere, calling it "the most inspiring story of a migrant in Beijing."
- Joining the Fortune Global 500
Next, we entered the Fortune Global 500.
Take a look at the change in Xiaomi's revenue over the past ten years. What a beautiful, soaring curve.
It was this record that earned us a place in the Fortune Global 500, where we ranked 468th.
I had not thought it was such a big deal before, but when we actually made the list, I was still a little excited.
While I was writing a letter to all our employees, a colleague suggested that perhaps we should be modest and pretend not to care.
I said, "Let us not pretend this time. I began building businesses as soon as I graduated from university, and I was always envious that Lin Bin and the others had the chance to work at Fortune Global 500 companies. Now, after all this effort, I have finally turned my own company into one of the Fortune Global 500 and can at last work for one myself. We absolutely have to show off a little."
Just yesterday, Xiaomi was named to the Fortune Global 500 again.
We owe all of this to this great era and to every Xiaomi colleague who has kept working and striving.
In the past, Xiaomi was constantly compared with long-established Fortune Global 500 companies such as Apple, Huawei, and Samsung. There was indeed a gap.
But Xiaomi is only a ten-year-old adolescent. If you view us in terms of development, you will find that Xiaomi already has many outstanding qualities. For example, five Chinese companies appeared in BCG's 2020 list of the world's fifty most innovative companies: Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com, and Xiaomi.
Only three Chinese companies appeared in Derwent's Top 100 Global Innovators 2020: Huawei, Xiaomi, and Tencent.
Seventeen Chinese brands appeared in the BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2020, including Xiaomi at number eighty-one.
These three authoritative global rankings fully demonstrate Xiaomi's remarkable achievements in innovation and brand building.
Of course, Xiaomi today may still fall somewhat short of your expectations, but the speed of its future growth is certain to surpass your imagination.
5.2 What Has Xiaomi Changed in These Ten Years?
Xiaomi's ten years have also been the ten years of the mobile internet. It has been our greatest honor to move forward alongside this extraordinary era.
When we look back on the past decade, what are we truly proud of?
First, together with all our peers, we helped make smartphones widely accessible and advanced the growth of the mobile internet.
Cheng Wei, the founder of Didi, once said that China's mobile internet entrepreneurs may all owe Xiaomi their thanks, because Xiaomi powerfully accelerated the spread of the mobile internet. Meituan, Didi, ByteDance, Kuaishou, and the other leading internet companies of a new generation that are now household names all benefited from its development.
Second, together with like-minded entrepreneurs, we transformed many industries and helped many founders succeed.
In early 2015, Xiaomi's ecosystem program invested in Chang Jing, a young man who had just left a large company to start a business. No one imagined that in only five years, Roborock would become a leader in the robotic vacuum cleaner industry. It successfully listed on the STAR Market this February with a market value as high as RMB 40 billion. Xiaomi's ecosystem model has helped transform more than one hundred industries and enabled a large group of entrepreneurs like Chang Jing to thrive.
Beyond that, Xiaomi has even changed some people's lives.
Ellyana lives on Batam Island in Indonesia and is the mother of three children. After her husband died several years ago, the family lost its source of income and fell into hardship.
Three years ago, Xiaomi established a production line in Indonesia. She found a job at Xiaomi's Indonesian factory, and her life changed dramatically. With the job, she could support her family. She also learned a great deal, made many friends, and gained much greater standing in her village.
Women make up 90 percent of the employees on Xiaomi's production lines in Indonesia. Our enterprise has helped them change their lives.
5.3 The Xiaomi Biography
That is my answer to the first question: "Where did Xiaomi come from?"
Of course, ten years contain far too many wonderful stories for a single speech.
The renowned biographer Fan Haitao has written the first officially authorized biography of Xiaomi. Beginning at the end of the year before last, she conducted extensive interviews with the Xiaomi team, speaking with more than one hundred people over a year and a half. The book is titled Forward Without Hesitation.
My thanks to Ms. Fan Haitao, and also to CITIC Press for all its work. The book will be released across all channels immediately after this speech. If you would like to learn more stories about Xiaomi, I recommend buying a copy. At 360,000 Chinese characters, it is extremely detailed. Ten-year-old Xiaomi is growing up one step at a time.
Our research and development budget for this year alone is as high as RMB 10 billion.
It is precisely because of this unending spirit of innovation and our RMB 10 billion investment in research and development that Xiaomi will always bring forth more and cooler products.
So what do Xiaomi's own people think of its first ten years?
Mr. Lei expressed three wishes:
"My first wish is for Xiaomi to become one of the best-known brands in the world, so that wherever we go, people in every country will know how to pronounce Xiaomi. My second wish is that no one will call Mr. Lei a model worker anymore, because this stage belongs to Xiaomi's young people.
My third wish is that another large group of remarkable startups will be born and grow up. When they succeed, they will say that Xiaomi's entrepreneurial story inspired them. I believe Xiaomi will reach heights our dreams have never yet touched."
In addition, we have carefully prepared several representative tenth-anniversary products for you today.
06
New Product Launches
- Mi 10 Ultra, starting at RMB 5,299
It brings together numerous debut technologies and innovative features. Using classic material elements such as mirrored surfaces, transparency, and glass, it demonstrates Xiaomi's outstanding technical mastery through the industry's most advanced craftsmanship.
- Redmi K30 Ultra, starting at RMB 1,999
It carries on the flagship heritage of Redmi's K series. The flagship Dimensity 1000+ chip combines 5G connectivity and formidable performance in a single processor. Together with a 120 Hz ultra-high refresh rate and dual stereo speakers, its uncompromising capabilities redefine the flagship standard.
- Mi TV LUX Transparent Edition, Master Series, RMB 49,999
The Mi Transparent TV is the world's first mass-produced transparent OLED television. By bringing into mass production a product that previously existed only in science fiction films, Xiaomi is exploring the ultimate future form of television.
- Ninebot GoKart Pro Lamborghini Edition, RMB 9,999
Xiaomi's mission has always been to become the coolest company in the hearts of Mi Fans. After Xiaomi made self-balancing scooters, once reserved for technology enthusiasts, accessible to ordinary consumers, the Ninebot GoKart Pro Lamborghini Edition is another fashionable and exciting toy created for Mi Fans.
- And Several Other New Products
07
Who Is Xiaomi?
What Does Xiaomi Strive For?
Xiaomi's Three Unchanging Principles
Today's speech is now drawing to a close.
Today, we are doing more than launching products. We are also issuing Xiaomi's declaration for the next decade.
The answer to "Where did Xiaomi come from, and where is it going?" can be found in the products I have just launched.
- Mi 10 Ultra
Count how many cutting-edge technologies it contains: 120x zoom, the world's top DxOMark rating, 120-watt ultra-fast charging, 50-watt wireless ultra-fast charging, and much more. It is this series of advanced technologies that gives Xiaomi the courage and strength to compete in the premium phone market.
Technology is our foundation, and we will never stop climbing toward its summit.
That is Xiaomi's attitude toward mastering hard technology over the next ten years.
To the Mi Fans who care about our Surge chips: please rest assured that we are continuing our research and development.
- Redmi K30 Ultra
With a flagship phone that leaves "nothing to criticize and nothing to regret," we return to RMB 1,999. It is a tribute to being "born for enthusiasts" and to the ten years that Mi Fans and we have shared.
Value for money is our guiding principle. It is the greatest sincerity we can show in making friends with our users, and it is our core strategy.
Whether a product is for the mass market or the premium market, we will always uphold value for money so that every user can buy with complete confidence.
- Mi Transparent TV
It is the world's first mass-produced transparent television, turning the impossible into reality. Is this product cool enough?
Continuing to make the coolest products is Xiaomi's eternal pursuit. Becoming the coolest company in our users' hearts is Xiaomi's vision.
We are a group of engineers. Making the coolest products is how we express our love for this world, and it is our proper calling.
These three "Ultra" products represent Xiaomi's three unchanging principles: technology is our foundation, value for money is our guiding principle, and we make the coolest products. We will always uphold these three principles.
Our Strategy for Future Development
Today, we have spoken at length about our achievements over the past ten years, and we are indeed extremely proud.
But we also understand very clearly that we now face an extraordinarily complex international environment as well as extremely intense competition. What should we do next?
If we try to defend today's achievements and live comfortably off our past performance, there is no doubt that we will lose them.
If we continue charging ahead recklessly and pursuing extensive growth without regard for the consequences, there is no doubt that this path will fail as well. That is the complex situation we face today.
Today, our strategy has three parts:
- Start Up Again
In today's circumstances, we must once again summon the passion of a startup and give it everything we have.
We must boldly appoint entrepreneurial talent, boldly use entrepreneurial incentives, and boldly seize new strategic opportunities...
I will not go into the specific details here.
Actions speak louder than words. Over the coming period, we will show everyone what we can do.
- Internet Plus Manufacturing
We believe in the internet and in internet methodology. We will continue using the internet to empower manufacturing.
While continuing to cooperate sincerely with contract manufacturers, we will become deeply involved in manufacturing ourselves. We have independently developed a large amount of advanced equipment and completed the design of a fully automated production line for premium phones.
The Xiaomi Industry Investment Fund has invested in more than seventy semiconductor and smart manufacturing companies.
This is what Xiaomi intends to do in the future: manufacture the means of manufacturing.
- Steady Progress for the Long Term
We will view everything on a ten-year horizon. We will do things that create long-term value and make time our friend. At the same time, we will advance steadily in strategy and avoid reckless moves.
I believe:
In the next decade, the flame of innovation will illuminate every wild idea, and Xiaomi will become a place engineers aspire to join.
In the next decade, intelligent living will profoundly affect every one of us, and Xiaomi will become a leader in the lifestyles of the future.
In the next decade, smart manufacturing will further support the rise of Chinese brands, and Xiaomi will become an emerging force in Chinese manufacturing that cannot be ignored.
In the next decade, Xiaomi will become a winding, surging river, flowing through the better lives of people around the world and onward toward the stars and seas to which we all aspire.
On the journey ahead, believe in yourself and move forward without hesitation. Thank you all.
