Source: Securities Times

At the beginning of the year 2024, Xiaomi showed the importance it attached to research and development.

On January 4, Lei Jun, founder, chairman and CEO of the Xiaomi Group, posted on Weibo: “The first major event in 2024 will be the award of the million US dollar annual technology award to Xiaomi engineers. This is the highest internal award for Xiaomi, and rewards teams of up to 10 people who have made key breakthroughs in major technological innovation projects.”

In addition to this, the “grudge and feud” between Xiaomi and OnePlus has also entered a new phase. Some bloggers broke the news that “Mr. Lan”, the head behind the Navy team, has been arrested, and “OnePlus hasn't even touched porcelain recently.” Wang Teng, general manager of Redmi Market and spokesperson for the brand department, retweeted the Weibo saying, “As far as I know, all the descriptions are true.”

Xiaomi rewards two teams with one million dollars

According to information, the winners this time were the “Xiaomi Surge OS New Architecture” and “Integrated Large Die-casting Technology” teams. These two teams have made important contributions to Xiaomi's “closed loop for the whole ecosystem of people and cars.” The propensity of this award can also be seen how seriously Xiaomi attaches importance to the automotive business.

On October 26, 2023, Lei Jun announced the new Xiaomi Surge OS system and proposed upgrading the Xiaomi Group's strategy from “mobile phone x AIoT” to “the whole ecosystem of people and cars.” From personal devices to smart homes, to smart travel, Xiaomi will create a human-centered “whole ecosystem of people, cars, and families” smart world.

According to Lei Jun, starting with MIUI, when Xiaomi was founded in 2010, Xiaomi's Surge OS has gone through 13 years of exploration and 7 years of research and development: in 2017, Xiaomi's self-developed Vela OS was officially released, gradually unifying the IoT device ecosystem; in 2019, Xiaomi began developing Mina OS, a pure self-developed general system in parallel; in 2021, Xiaomi began the development of car OS; in early 2022, Xiaomi unified the software architecture of the four systems MIUI, Vela, Mina, and car engine OS. Done, Xiaomi Surge OS will be released at the end of 2023.

According to the Guojin Securities Research Report, the first car version of Xiaomi Auto equipped with Surge OS is one of the strongest ecological linkages in the entire industry. On the basis of rider linkage, Xiaomi has a strong LoT product ecosystem, which can further realize “car-hander-home” linkage. By the end of the third quarter of 2023, Xiaomi had become the world's largest consumer-grade IoT platform, with 655 million connected devices and 13 million users with 5 or more Xiaomi IoT devices. Based on a wider coverage of smart devices and a new surging OS, Xiaomi is expected to stand out from the competition in the field of ecological connectivity between Hongmeng Auto, FlymeAuto, and NIO Phone.

The integrated large die-casting technology is a technical highlight that Xiaomi strongly explained at the Xiaomi Auto Technology Conference held on December 28, 2023.

Lei Jun said that in terms of large die-casting technology, Xiaomi has independently designed a large die-casting equipment cluster system throughout the chain and developed a Xiaomi super die-casting machine with a clamping force of 9,100 tons. The die-casting island has a total weight of 1,050 tons and covers an area of 840 square meters. The die-casting machine can produce an integrated die-cast floor with 72 parts in one, reducing the number of welding points by 840 and reducing weight by 17%.

In order to solve the material problem, Xiaomi collaborated with the National Key Materials Laboratory to select from 10.16 million formulations and develop the Xiaomi Titan alloy. According to Lei Jun, Xiaomi is “the only domestic car manufacturer with mass-produced self-developed alloy materials.”

Regarding Xiaomi's large die-casting technology, an expert group formed by the Chinese Society of Automotive Engineers and the National New Energy Vehicle Technology Innovation Center stated, “The overall technology of the project has reached the international advanced level. Among them, the ultra-long flow structure-material-process-performance research method and material performance prediction model have reached the leading international level.”

Overall, Xiaomi's rewards for the two major technical teams reflect the importance that Xiaomi has placed on research and development in recent years. Lei Jun said that Xiaomi invested 16.2 billion yuan in R&D in 2022, is expected to reach 20 billion yuan in 2023, and will also invest more than 100 billion yuan in technology research and development in the next five years.

“What is the level of 16.2 billion yuan? In September of this year, the National Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Finance issued the “2022 National Science and Technology Investment Statistics Bulletin”. In 2022, the country invested 3078.29 billion yuan in R&D. Xiaomi's R&D investment already accounts for 0.53% of the country's total R&D expenditure, including state-owned enterprises, state-owned enterprises, universities, research institutes, and private enterprises.” Lei Jun said.

The battle between Xiaomi and OnePlus has entered a new phase

On the same day that Lei Jun posted an official announcement on Weibo to reward the two major teams, the topic “Xiaomi confirmed that a certain factory's navy was investigated by the police” also hit the headlines.

On January 3, a digital blogger said, “It's just because Technology is an account owned by Guangdong Media, a black factory supplier. There are also Hai Technology, Lie Ma Chenfeng, Victory Raiders, and Curator Zero in the same batch. The person in charge behind the team, called Mr. Lan, was arrested two weeks ago... He was still working overtime on New Year's Day to delete some internal information about the company, and I don't know if it was the material involved in the case. So who in the family knows? This supplier has been rejected; OnePlus hasn't even touched porcelain recently.”

Afterwards, “Wang Teng Thomas,” certified as the general manager of the Redmi (Redmi) market and spokesperson for the Redmi brand, retweeted the above Weibo, saying, “As far as I know, all the descriptions are true. Create a healthy public opinion environment for the Ministry of Justice @小米品牌安全点赞.”

The OnePlus brand was mentioned in the remarks of the digital blogger mentioned above, and recently both Xiaomi and OnePlus not only have executives “blackmail”, but they also have countless “grudges and feuds.”

In December 2023, on the day of the OnePlus 12 press conference, OnePlus compared the new models with the “Youshang 14” series several times. Through parameters and configurations, it can be seen that the “Youshang 14” series is the Xiaomi 14 series. OnePlus listed the main camera, telephoto, eye protection, battery, and chip selling points of the “Youshang 14” and “Youshang 14 Pro,” and concluded that “OnePlus 12 is superior to the Youshang 14 Pro, and the price is even lower.”

In 2022, at the OnePlus 9th anniversary event, OnePlus once called out the goal of “becoming number one in the online market of more than 2,000 yuan in the next three years”. And to achieve this goal, OnePlus's main competitor is Xiaomi.

At the Xiaomi press conference, the OnePlus phone also became a “background board” many times. At the annual flagship press conference held by Xiaomi in August 2023, when Xiaomi released the K60 Extreme Edition, PPT spent a lot of time comparing “Youshang 11,” and the conclusions reached were also beneficial to Xiaomi.

On November 19, 2023, a blogger posted on Weibo and broke the news that some platform users found netizens with normal feedback on Xiaomi issues and asked to retweet material about the Xiaomi phone's stuttering, heating, frame drop, etc., for a price of 50 yuan. This kind of “black” Xiaomi video will be posted on video platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Station B. Lei Jun then personally retweeted the relevant Weibo and @小米品牌安全去调查相关问题.

On December 7, 2023, Li Jie, president of OnePlus China, posted on the official Weibo: “I heard that now some people are falsifying the facts of some price cuts and are posting our OnePlus 12 channel price cuts everywhere on a large scale. Here, it is necessary to make a clarification and promise: if the price reduction is real, we will recycle the original price!”

At the same time, Li Jie said, “In the past two days, some people have been organizing large-scale slander against OnePlus 12. Currently, the company has alerted the Dongguan police, verified the clues from several companies behind it, and is currently solidifying some evidence. The latest developments will be synchronized with everyone in a timely manner.”

The reason why OnePlus and Xiaomi are facing “marines” one after another is also fierce competition in the mobile phone industry. According to IDC data, in the third quarter of 2023, the Chinese smartphone market shipped about 67.05 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 6.3%.

However, according to IDC forecasts, in 2024, shipments in the Chinese smartphone market will achieve the first year-on-year increase since 2021. The recovery of the post-epidemic economic environment has led to an improvement in residents' overall income, and consumption momentum will increase markedly. Consumer demand for smartphones has also increased due to the restoration of usage scenarios such as leisure and entertainment and smart travel. At the same time, the increase in consumer demand for large storage portfolios is also driving the beginning of a new rotation cycle.

According to IDC, shipments in the Chinese smartphone market will reach 287 million units in 2024, an increase of 3.6% over the previous year, and shipments will remain stable in the next few years.

Editor/Corrine