A sea of smartphones, spectators who occupy the entire central aisle, overflow to the other stands. Even the technicians who led Xiaomi’s press conference at the Beijing fair (April 25 to May 5) took out their phones to capture a small part of Lei Jun’s speech. Cream-colored jacket and white T-shirt, the founder of The Chinese electronics brand displays its vision of the automobile, along with a turquoise blue SU7, the smartphone brand’s first electric car.
Meetings with the heads of Renault and Great Wall
Although only 3 years ago it decided to launch into the automobile, Xiaomi presented the Speed Ultra 7 (SU7) at the end of December, a sedan that sells a little less expensive than a Tesla Model 3 but with the advertised features of a Porsche. Taycan (and whose stylistic inspirations are similar). Since then, Xiaomi has registered more than 75,000 orders, Lei Jun revealed at the show, and has already delivered more than 5,000 of them. With the help of the state manufacturer BAIC, which produces them in a factory near the Chinese capital.
In Beijing, the leader was very courteous and greeted his counterparts in the automotive sector during the first day of the show. He met Luca De Meo, the CEO of Renault. The two men posed smiling at the Xiaomi stand and held “decisive discussions” about electric cars and new technologies, stressed François Provost, head of public affairs at Renault, in a post on Linkedin.
Lei Jun also presented his approach to Wei Jianjun, the founder of Chinese manufacturer Great Wall. As if China’s new car meets the old, although not that old: Great Wall was founded in 1984, Xiaomi in 2010. But at this Beijing show, Lei Jun is clearly a rising automotive star, after becoming leader of smartphones.
Revolutionize the world of smartphones
Born in 1969 in Hubei, a region known for being one of the nerve centers of the automobile industry in China, Lei Jun comes from the world of software with the startup Kingsoft, which he left at the end of the 2000s. Passionate about programming, explains Echo , who followed the rise of computing power from a young age. The Belgian newspaper says that he then took advantage of the school’s computer club to train, while his modest family could not have a computer in the 80s. He graduated in computer science from Wuhan University.
After Kingsoft, building on his relationships with a former Google employee, Lei Jun founded Xiaomi when the smartphone market was taking off. In five years, the brand has risen to third place among smartphone manufacturers in the world (today it is the fifth manufacturer in the world and continues to do business in Russia, as CNN recalls), with a capitalization at the end of April of 55 billion Dollars.
In 2014, the brand surpassed Samsung and, having become a billionaire, Lei Jun was elected Man of the Year by Forbes Asia, as L’Echo recalls. Lei Jun is today the eleventh richest in China, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and the 128th richest in the world. One of the keys to Xiaomi’s success is, according to Britannica Money, this strategy: focusing on a direct relationship with the consumer through social networks and selling only online to reduce costs. And so the prices.
“Xiaomi is an established electronics brand, with hundreds of millions of ‘My Fans’, the users of its ecosystem,” Bill Russo, general director of Automotive in Shanghai, told Reuters in December.
Lei Jun’s communication is also well established on social networks, based on videos that follow his movements on the various Xiaomi sites, on new products and explanations of his strategy and publications that, of course, now mix smartphones and cars.
This success in the telephone world earned Lei Jun the nickname “Chinese Steve Jobs” in the media. His presentations resemble the Apple leader’s famous keynotes. Lei Jun “is one of the first to understand that Chinese consumers need a brand they can believe in,” explained a consultant in China in 2013, according to La Tribune.
Become one of the top 5 global manufacturers
Lei Jun seems firmly convinced that the world of electronics and automobiles will become increasingly linked. In late February, Lei Jun said he was “shocked” by Apple’s decision to abandon its electric car project.
Will the speed of success be replicated in this new sector for the brand? Although it is too early to assess the profitability of Xiaomi’s car project, its ability to market a car in three years is still impressive. And Lei Jun is ambitious: “by working hard, over the next 15 to 20 years, we can become one of the top five automakers in the world.”
Source: BFM TV
