Is Lei Jun's sincerity enjoyable?
The closely watched Xiaomi SU7 finally announced its selling price: 215900 to 299900 yuan.
Lei Jun admitted that he is selling the car at a loss at this stage, which is his way of expressing sincerity.
On the first day of Xiaomi's entry into the automotive industry, he had already been born from death.
Author | Wang Yajun
Source | Xuebao Finance Agency
At the opening ceremony of "the last battle of life", Lei Jun invited five car company leaders: Li Bin, Li Xiang, He Xiaopeng, Wei Jianjun and Zhang Jianyong. However, the price of Xiaomi Motors was the most concerned issue during the whole press conference.
On the evening of March 28, Xiaomi SU7, the first model of Xiaomi, was officially launched. Lei Jun announced the price of three versions of this model at the new car launch conference:
Standard edition: 215900 yuan; Pro version: 245900 yuan; Max version: 299900 yuan.
Three months ago, Lei Jun left the suspense that Xiaomi SU7 was not cheap, which also made him bear the risk of "betraying" rice noodles. As the press conference approached, some rice noodles still firmly believed that the price of Xiaomi SU7 would be lower than the 199000 yuan denied by Lei Jun many times.
"If you sell this car cheaply, it's wrong." He Xiaopeng commented on Xiaomi SU7 on his personal twitter account on the afternoon of the press conference.
27 minutes, 50000 yuan
Before officially announcing the price, Lei Jun spent 99 minutes introducing the configuration of Xiaomi SU7 - nine color combinations, zero hundred acceleration 2.78s, 700 km range, and all series of standard intelligent auxiliary driving.
However, users watching the live broadcast can't wait, and have been urging Lei Jun to reveal the answer as soon as possible.
"Do not use color, but quote"
"Please tell me the price first, I promise not to slip"
"Price up"
"Get on the Little Yellow Car"
"Say the price, don't fix it"
……
During the press conference, the "price of Xiaomi SU7" topped the microblog search.
After nearly 100 minutes of the press conference, Lei Jun finally mentioned the price: "Xiaomi SU7 should be completely introduced. Finally, let's talk about pricing."
But at this time, he did not directly announce the answer, but made preparations again.
Lei Jun calculated according to Tesla's financial report last year that only when Tesla sold 1.8 million vehicles annually, Model 3 was priced at 223000 yuan, could the cost be basically balanced. "Today, the cost of pure trams is very high, and it is difficult to make money," he said frankly.
However, Lei Jun said that Xiaomi SU7 was still willing to use materials in terms of cost. "An expert carefully looked at our chassis and found that our materials are very solid, and we are all top suppliers in the world. He said that I was very impressed, called full of RMB flavor."
Lei Jun admitted that the power consumption level of Tesla Model 3 is the first in the world and far ahead. "However, we have technology, and our batteries are large", "they are Class B cars, we are Class C cars, and our cars are bigger".
He also believes that in China, Xiaomi SU7 is no less than Model 3. "For intelligent driving, I think numeracy is very important, but numeracy is not completely equal to experience, and experience is the most critical".
After 7 minutes of preparation and comparison, Lei Jun finally gave the price of the standard version of Xiaomi SU7, which is 30000 yuan cheaper than the new version of Model 3.
Lei Jun still explained the configuration in detail before giving the price of the other two versions. When introducing the Pro version, he still used Model 3 to compare, "If this product was put in front of Model 3, which would you choose?" When introducing the top configuration Max version, he said, "When defining the product, we directly benchmark Porsche. We call it the performance beast."
"Is today's pricing satisfying?" Lei Jun asked after publishing the price of three versions.
According to the official data of Xiaomi Auto, 27 minutes after the launch of Xiaomi SU7, the number of large orders has reached 50000. Or driven by this news, Xiaomi Group (ADR) rose 12.13% to $10.62 on the day of the press conference.
It took 25 days for the new model M7, which once brought AITO Quest back to life, to achieve a large order of more than 50000. In 2023, Weilai and Xiaopeng sold 160000 and 141600 cars respectively.
However, it is worth noting that the big rule of Xiaomi SU7 is different from the traditional big rule. Traditionally, big orders are non refundable, but Xiaomi's big orders can be refundable within 7 days.
Survive from death
On March 12, the day of the official announcement of the launch date of Xiaomi Auto, Lei Jun released a microblog saying that the growth stage and user expectations of Xiaomi Auto from 0 to 1 were different from those of Xiaomi Mobile 14 years ago.
In the book "Xiaomi Entrepreneurship Thinking", Lei Jun recalled that in 2011, in order to set a reasonable price for Xiaomi's first generation mobile phones, he hardly slept for three nights. At this press conference, Lei Jun revealed that the pricing of Xiaomi SU7 only took one hour, "this is the shortest time in our pricing process of major products".
Thirteen years ago, Lei Jun couldn't sleep through the night because Xiaomi's pricing strategy was close to cost at that time. "At the end of 2010, the planned cost of a single mobile phone was 1500 yuan, and the planned price was 1499 yuan". However, after cost recalculation, it was found that the cost of Xiaomi's first generation mobile phone exceeded 500 yuan. If the original pricing was adhered to, it would suffer a huge loss of 200 million yuan. Finally, Lei Jun decided to price the company's first generation mobile phone at 1999 yuan.
At the Xiaomi Auto Press Conference, Lei Jun admitted that at this stage he is selling his car at a loss, which is his "way of expressing sincerity".
When announcing the price of the standard version, Lei Jun said that this version would cost another 30000 yuan, which was also a loss of money. The Max version originally wanted to price 350000 yuan, "but today everyone is too busy, and everyone's expectations for Xiaomi are too high. We use the highest sincerity to express that we must achieve value for money".
He has made good psychological expectation of loss. When he announced the car building in 2021, Lei Jun boasted that Xiaomi had money and "we can afford to lose!" According to the company's financial report, by the end of 2023, Xiaomi's cash reserves had reached a record high of 136.3 billion yuan.
Rice noodles were once the basis for Xiaomi to enter the high-end mobile phone market. Although times have changed, Lei Jun still has the same expectations for rice noodles as before.
At the annual speech in 2021, Lei Jun said that there were more than 100 million people using Xiaomi mobile phones in China at that time. As long as a high-end mobile phone that could be recognized by Mifen could be made, 2% of people would be willing to give Xiaomi a chance.
Lei Jun also has the same vision for Xiaomi SU7: as long as 1% of rice noodles are willing to buy Xiaomi cars, they can also bring a "dream start" to his final battle.
Everbright Securities said in a research paper that the core competitiveness of Xiaomi in the automotive industry is a people-oriented, young brand image and a good fan base.
At the press conference, Lei Jun also repeatedly mobilized rice noodles to buy a car.
He specially launched the inaugural version of Xiaomi SU7 for Xiaomi Iron Powder, which "you can buy Xiaomi products with your eyes closed". There are two versions in total, and the price is the same as the standard version and the Max version, with a limit of 5000 vehicles. The deposit of the original version is higher, and the order can not be refunded because it is locked upon payment.
Buying the original version of Xiaomi SU7 rice noodles will help you get a new car more quickly (it will be delivered on April 3). For non original users, the real scale delivery will not start until the end of April.
What is the success of Xiaomi SU7 in its first year of listing?
Li Yanwei, a member of the expert committee of China Automobile Circulation Association, said that in the first year, it is necessary to obtain 20% of the market share in the market segment, that is, the annual sales of more than 60000 vehicles.
He believes that the challenges faced by Xiaomi SU7 at the initial stage of its listing are that there are fewer sales outlets competing with each other, and the production needs to climb up and leap over the production quality.
The price belt of Xiaomi SU7 is also the most competitive battlefield in the entire automobile industry. (See "The Last Secret of Xiaomi Car" of Xuebao Finance Agency for details)
"On the first day of the conference, we had already lived from death to death," Lei Jun said in an interview after the conference.
(Statement: This article only represents the author's view, not Sina.com's position.)
