Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 51 posts

Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures

#11

Post by tajen »

dmritard96 wrote: post #7
DCKing wrote: post #4

It's interesting what's going on here. They have gone on record before that they're not making a profit on their phones, and evidently their tactics are creating a bit of an internal mess. They've grown very rapidly. I imported a Xiaomi Mi 4C a month or two ago for €100 (it still sells around that price). For that price you get a fantastic 5" screen, the same Snapdragon 808 chip / 2GB RAM as the €300 Nexus 5X, a more…

There is an important supply chain related nuance in my opinion - in the US, distribution channels are critically important - Amazon, Best Buy etc. - but in Asia, this isn't always the case, in fact a flash sale on JD or some vendors stores directly means they can play with skinny margins and sell products. If you are selling something in Best Buy, there is a good chance that there is a 50% markup in many cases which…

Vendors (from Samsung to even clothing companies) make agreements with retail stores to have the same price in shops and online. Otherwise online would be cheaper and retail would refuse to list more expensive SKUs. The only ways to bypass the markup of the distribution network are:

- Go "Tesla" mode: Sell directly online or manage your own distribution – Only works if you pull off a unique product, makes the pricesheet much cleaner (examples: Apple and most hardware startups).

- Use Amazon for distribution to bypass retailers and their markup: That would have worked until 2015, but on one hand it seems no seller would rely solely on Amazon for distribution (lack of foothold of Amazon?); on the other hand Amazon decided to massively dispatch counterfeited products together with merchant-originated ones, casting a doubt on the brand and tainting all their providers together.

To date, it seems like retail remains the safest way to order an item...

Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures

#12

Post by Splines »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #9
DCKing wrote: post #4

It's interesting what's going on here. They have gone on record before that they're not making a profit on their phones, and evidently their tactics are creating a bit of an internal mess. They've grown very rapidly. I imported a Xiaomi Mi 4C a month or two ago for €100 (it still sells around that price). For that price you get a fantastic 5" screen, the same Snapdragon 808 chip / 2GB RAM as the €300 Nexus 5X, a more…

I believe I read that Xiaomi has an ecosystem model where they sell phones as loss-leaders at low margins in order to build their brand and capture customers for high margin software. I don't think that's going to work as they don't own the operating system.

They have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIUI, but I don't know if MIUI enables them to sell services or have their own app store.

Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures

#13

Post by bostand »

DCKing wrote: post #4

It's interesting what's going on here. They have gone on record before that they're not making a profit on their phones, and evidently their tactics are creating a bit of an internal mess. They've grown very rapidly. I imported a Xiaomi Mi 4C a month or two ago for €100 (it still sells around that price). For that price you get a fantastic 5" screen, the same Snapdragon 808 chip / 2GB RAM as the €300 Nexus 5X, a more…

> They have gone on record before that they're not making a profit on their phones

Maybe not (I actually think they do), but they are making money on phone-plus-services.

Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures

#14

Post by bostand »

supergreg wrote: post #6
DCKing wrote: post #4

It's interesting what's going on here. They have gone on record before that they're not making a profit on their phones, and evidently their tactics are creating a bit of an internal mess. They've grown very rapidly. I imported a Xiaomi Mi 4C a month or two ago for €100 (it still sells around that price). For that price you get a fantastic 5" screen, the same Snapdragon 808 chip / 2GB RAM as the €300 Nexus 5X, a more…

Are you sure it is Xiaomi selling under cost and not the other way around? Prices for other phones are excessive compared to Xiaomi and other Chinese brands with similar specs.

I don't think their business plan to sell things at a loss.

This is a young company with many great engineers and known for their efficiency

Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures

#15

Post by [deleted] »

darklajid wrote: post #2

I bought an Amazfit Pace after Pebble went down. Boy is that thing broken: That smart watch has glitches showing the _time_, notifications are broken beyond repair - some plain don't show up and most others are duplicated and the watch soft reboots/crashes a lot. I can see why the parent company might want to slow down a bit..

[deleted]

Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures

#16

Post by WhitneyLand »

They're in a weak position long term because they don't have a cohesive strategy. It's a shotgun approach of trying many diverse offerings and hoping something will take off. The problem with this is lack of focus, not being able to rally the company around a singular mission.

If you look at all of their businesses most are either low margin or undifferentiated or both.

They have a big asset tied up in their patent portfolio. They need to make use of it, either defensively i.e. enter a western market, or as a platform to focus more of their efforts around fewer initiatives and become truly great at something that makes money. It's hard to be innovative at many things at once.

Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures

#17

Post by ilamont »

highly-regarded Chinese outfit

It wasn't so much a matter of being "highly regarded" as it was being overly hyped. I am not sure if it was the media’s fault or Xiaomi’s own PR efforts, but the nonstop “Steve Jobs of China” headlines and fawning articles about the hardware and Miui were over the top. When Xiaomi was listed #2 in Technology Review’s “50 Smartest Companies” of 2015 (behind Tesla, 1) I was flabbergasted — yes, they are nice phones (we own a Hongmi and a another larger-screen phone whose name I can’t remember) but there are lots of problems with Xiaomi’s Android implementation, and the low-cost strategy is clearly not sustainable.

Design can only take you so far in the Android universe, as the HTC example demonstrates (2). Undercutting competitors on price is also not a long-term strategy.

1. https://www.technologyreview.com/lists/companies/2015/

2. http://www.recode.net/2016/4/12/11586042/htc-10-looks-to-mak...

Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures

#18

Post by ian0 »

ilamont wrote: post #17

highly-regarded Chinese outfit It wasn't so much a matter of being "highly regarded" as it was being overly hyped. I am not sure if it was the media’s fault or Xiaomi’s own PR efforts, but the nonstop “Steve Jobs of China” headlines and fawning articles about the hardware and Miui were over the top. When Xiaomi was listed #2 in Technology Review’s “50 Smartest Companies” of 2015 (behind Tesla, 1) I was flabbergasted…

I don't think they are overhyped at all.

I own a Mi4i, converted from a Nexus 5. My biggest worry was unfounded, I ended up loving MIUI. It is, in my opinion, way more usable than vanilla android and they seem to do significant updates once every few weeks. The design is very nice, its routinely assumed Im using a high-end smartphone. The screen is great, battery is ok (relative to the times), its occasionally laggy with lots of apps open but nothing that really annoys.

Of course the pricing is absolutely insane, cant comment on them as a business. Worth saying that while Im not an a typical user I would pay double the price before even considering another brand.

Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures

#19

Post by dmritard96 »

dogma1138 wrote: post #10
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe I read that Xiaomi has an ecosystem model where they sell phones as loss-leaders at low margins in order to build their brand and capture customers for high margin software. I don't think that's going to work as they don't own the operating system.

It will work there are quite a few alternative app stores that do make money. Considering that emerging markets sell phones without google play I would go on a limb and say that most android phones sold now come without the play store.

This is a great point! Because of google services being blocked in China, the play store is unavailable so people download their apps ('A-P-Ps' if talking to someone in China) via 3rd party sites. Trying to become a substantial app distributor is a nice idea but also very difficult between Apple have a locked down platform and serious competition from antimalware companies and others who already have a solid foothold in this space, but I can certainly see the value in trying.

Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures

#20

Post by pcr0 »

dogma1138 wrote: post #10
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe I read that Xiaomi has an ecosystem model where they sell phones as loss-leaders at low margins in order to build their brand and capture customers for high margin software. I don't think that's going to work as they don't own the operating system.

It will work there are quite a few alternative app stores that do make money. Considering that emerging markets sell phones without google play I would go on a limb and say that most android phones sold now come without the play store.

I think China is the only market where phones are sold without google services. Even when Xiaomi sells to India or Hong Kong, the phones are often "global version" (different ROM), which come with google services because everyone outside China expects them.
Post reply on HN