| The Internet rebuilds clothing industry, retail industry, home appliance industry, car industry and so on:wherever the Internet goes, the old business empire falls down. In recent years, along with the extensive application of3G technology, the development of the mobile Internet industry has shown explosive growth. The scale of market and the number of mobile Internet users have risen continuously. New mobile Internet applications and business models have been emerging endlessly, which thus leads to the rapid development of the smartphone industry. Like the industrial revolution, the arrival of the mobile Internet era has not only changed the way people live and work but also gradually changed the way of business management and strategic layout of enterprises. There is no doubt that the further development of mobile Internet will have a far reaching influence on the political, economic, cultural and other aspects of the whole society.The development of science and technology has given birth to new things. With the rapid development and the increasing popularity of Internet technology and network media, the idea of ordinary people and the way they obtain information are also changing:online shopping has gradually become the widely cognitive pattern of consumption in common people’s minds; social media such as WeChat, Weibo, and website also play an increasingly important role in people’s lives."Compared with the traditional media marketing, social media is not ’medium’ itself, but the marketing process that everyone is involved in. During the development of social media, communitization has become a trend:anyone, with strong participation, can be the audience as well as the communicator." However, Lei Jun brings Internet and new media into the mobile phone industry.In the mobile Internet era, Xiaomi smartphone, as the "atypical" representative of domestic mobile phone, has received widespread attention. The popularity of Xiaomi is inseparable from the driving of mobile Internet and social media marketing. MIUI and MiTalk, the mobile phone operating system and the chat software, have developed a community platform for the marketing of Xiaomi smartphone before it came to market and have attracted a large number of "MiFan"(meaning Xiaomi fans), which helps to build Xiaomi into a cost-effective smartphone that is most suitable for people to use. Xiaomi adopts a completely e-commerce mode which completely breaks the previous way that new phones should be sold in physical stores or through the Internet or even through the combined approach. This is not only thanks to Xiaomi smartphone’s excellent performance but also reflects Xiaomi team’s keen sense of new media in the Internet age and their courage and spirit of innovation in using the new marketing model.This paper takes Xiaomi, the most concerned domestic e-commerce company, as the research object, through theoretical studies at home and abroad, using case analysis and SWOT analysis, in order to decrypt the secret in the success of Xiaomi’s new marketing model in the Internet age. In this paper, the current status and trends of the mobile Internet industry and the global mobile phone industry are discussed in detail; through SWOT analysis of Xiaomi smartphone and emphatical analysis of its new marketing highlights, I summarize the key point in Xiaomi’s marketing success. Finally I analyze the potential risks in Xiaomi’s new marketing model, point out its problems in international marketing and put forward corresponding countermeasures, which have a positive and practical significance for Xiaomi to draw up future development strategy and also have certain reference significance for other similar domestic enterprises.This paper mainly consists of six chapters which analyze international marketing mode of Xiaomi in the Internet era.Chapter one, introduction, mainly introduces the research background, research contents, research methods and research purpose and significance. And in Literature Review, this thesis gives the accurate conception of the key words. Since the birth of mobile communication, mobile phone has changed people’s lives in tremendous ways, especially for the coming of mobile Internet era, China’s communication industry and mobile phone industry have developed rapidly, people no longer need to purchase different products just in order to do Internet shopping, watch TV and so on but can be satisfied in one single product with multiple functions. Smartphone greatly facilitates people’s lives. Smartphone and mobile Internet are gradually infiltrated into every aspect of people’s lives. In today’s mobile phone market, characterized by functional diversity and smartphone being the mobile internet terminal, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have entered the market one after another. During the explosive development of mobile Internet industry and domestic smartphone industry in2010, Xiaomi Inc. was founded. With its keen insight into the market and its positive innovation, Xiaomi breaks the traditional domestic mobile phone marketing and business models and becomes a popular domestic mobile phone manufacturer. Published in less than two years, Xiaomi phone has attracted the attention of more than500,000fans. The self-innovated MIUI (operating system), the hardware configuration which is better than iPhone and the price which is less than half of iPhone make Xiaomi smartphone very high cost-effective. Xiaomi, the first Internet smartphone brand, makes full use of the Internet and new media marketing and creates one marketing miracle after another in the era of mobile Internet. The unique appearance of Xiaomi brings new hopes and expectations for domestic manufacturers. Through the emphasis analysis on the international marketing mode of Xiaomi, this paper sums up the highlights and innovative points in Xiaomi’s current marketing mode and provides marketing reference for other mobile phone enterprises. In addition, through in-depth study, I hope to find the disadvantages and shortcomings of Xiaomi’s marketing model and put forward effective countermeasures, looking forward to a better future of Xiaomi in international markets.Chapter two mainly analyzes basic characteristics, current status and development trend of mobile Internet and mobile phone industry. First of all, unlike traditional Internet and telecommunication network, the main customers of mobile Internet are individual users, especially intellectuals with a certain degree of education. In the mobile Internet era, the main audiences are smartphone users. The overall development trend of the current mobile Internet industry is good, mainly manifested in four aspects:the more sophisticated network, the richer mobile applications, the rapid growth of intelligent terminal, and the rapid improvement of market scale. In the environment of the rapid development of mobile Internet, operator relationship shifts from one single dominator to a triply confronted and interdependent relationship among telecom operators, content providers, and terminal manufacturers. Some of the original Internet companies develop mobile terminals and provide special service by using their accumulated resources and advantages in the traditional Internet industry, for example, SNDA, Microsoft, and Xiaomi. They all have introduced smartphones. With the help of the mobile Internet platform, new marketing methods, such as Weibo marketing, WeChat marketing, and location-based service (GPS) marketing, have received good effects and will offer better services in the future. Benefited from the rapid development of mobile Internet, smartphone showed explosive growth in2012. Apple and Samsung possessed most profits of the global mobile phone industry. With China replacing America and becoming the world’s largest smartphone market, domestic mobile phone enterprises began to focus on details like the optimization of the appearance and improvement of performance and prefer quality to quantity, which brought hope to domestic brands.Chapter three mainly introduces Xiaomi’s background and history, customer segmentation, market positioning, and core competence. This paper finally sums up Xiaomi’s competitive advantages which enable Xiaomi to stand out in the fierce competition of international mobile phone market.In this section, through study, I find the popularity of Xiaomi is not accidental but the result of steady accumulation. With Xiaomi being the core, all the resources of Lei Jun collaborate with each other positively and every inch of the capital territory revitalizes, thus giving Xiaomi remarkable business sense and integrated ability that other companies cannot be matched. In the initial stage, a start-up, without brand, resources and customers, will be submerged if it competes with large companies in the Red Sea. Xiaomi finds such a Blue Sea:medium-end mobile phone costs RMB2000, focused on hardware development, high cost-effective with MIUI operating system and only for smartphone fans. This precise positioning is one of the most important factors in the success of Xiaomi. In addition, Xiaomi’s advantages are as follows:leader Lei Jun’s keen sense of business, effective team working among co-founders, value-for-money devices, advantages of Internet and social media. MIUI, as one of the three core products of Xiaomi and the main weapon of attracting users, will have a brilliant future because of the more and more abundant and flourishing mobile Internet business. Along with the huge domestic and emerging markets, Xiaomi’s future is very optimistic and promising. What’s most special for Xiaomi phone is its marketing model. During the initial days of launching, unlike traditional marketing, Xiaomi phones are exclusively sold online and take full use of the emerging social media, such as Weibo, WeChat, Facebook and Google plus, to improve its publicity. These social media not only improve the public attention of Xiaomi phone and boost participation of "MiFan" but also greatly reduce the cost of advertising and help Xiaomi to achieve a "zero inventory", which successfully help to avoid the product backlog and other issues. Xiaomi’s marketing channels are official website, Weibo, word-of-mouth, etc. And its marketing highlights are:flash sales strategy, marketing strategy via Internet and social media, and event marketing. Through the study I find Xiaomi’s success lies in its mobile Internet thinking in marketing. All preparatory work, whether the development of MIU, the promotion of Xiaomi official website, direct online sales model in the early days or the careful maintenance of Xiaomi community afterwards, embody one point:Lei Jun team build a benign mobile Internet ecosystem. Xiaomi team is adept in opening the door of "terminal+service" layout by using new marketing means and channels.Chapter four puts emphasis on the application of Xiaomi marketing model in international market. Xiaomi takes its first step of global expansion in some Asian countries which are similar to China in aspects of economy and culture. The first section of this chapter systematically analyzes the preparation work for Xiaomi to enter international market. Xiaomi applies the same marketing strategy to global market. The Internet ecosystem of Xiaomi is inseparable from hype events. In order to promote brand awareness, Xiaomi announces Hugo Bara’s cooperation with Xiaomi in a high-key way, which arouses the attention of foreign mobile phone enthusiasts. Then Xiaomi registers on the most popular local social channels and interacts with mobile phone enthusiasts positively, which makes them to be loyal MiFans. Building an international brand is never inseparable with remarkable after-sales service:setting up direct phone hotlines, online forums and Xiaomi service centers. All the measures for Xiaomi to gain a firm foothold in international market are carried out methodically. What is more, the reasons for Xiaomi to choose emerging markets instead of developed countries as its first step of global expansion are:market share of smartphone in these markets are relatively low; customers in these markets are more price-sensitive and have a similar preference as Chinese, such as the price and style of mobile phone. Furthermore, Android dominates these markets and MIUI, as a customized version of Android, is very promising in these markets. Then this paper takes India as an example to analyze Xiaomi’s successful marketing in global markets. Through the spectacular situation of the first six flash sales and the how crazy Indian MiFans are we can see Xiaomi’s marketing strategy is also very successful in international markets. However, in India, Xiaomi still faces many challenges such as the fierce competition in Indian market. Although smartphone market in India is very promising, the devices local mobile phone manufacturers sell are not inferior to Xiaomi phone and also have a very attractive price. What is more, international brands like Apple and Samsung are very popular in India. The quality issues of Xiaomi are hot topics MiFans and Internet users argue vehemently. The problem has still aroused customers’hatred in India. Based on Indian customers’love and hate of Xiaomi phone and the opportunities and challenges Xiaomi faces, India is expected to be the second home for Xiaomi after China.Chapter five mainly focus on SWOT analysis on Xiaomi in international market and provide corresponding development suggestions based on Xiaomi’s advantages, disadvantages, opportunities and challenges. First of all, Xiaomi’s advantages includes:Lei Jun’s keen sense of business; the former Vice President of Android Product Management of Google, Hugo Bara’s joining in Xiaomi lay a solid foundation for Xiaomi to gain a firm foothold in global markets; effective team working among co-founders, Internet marketing model, and the high cost-effective performance and sustainable innovation of Xiaomi smartphone. Lei Jun exerts "software+hardware+service" marketing mode to the extreme. However, with the success of Xiaomi, its problems gradually expose:the inadequate after-sale services, product quality problems, lack of funds and technology as well as the growing cost. These issues have become a stumbling block to the development of Xiaomi. Furthermore, market competition intensifies and some high-end smartphone manufacturers also begin to enter this market, which challenges Xiaomi’s original advantages. Xiaomi’s opportunities mainly come from huge emerging markets while developed countries are also promising. Xiaomi can expand into industrial markets after it has stood firmly in emerging markets.Chapter six is the conclusion of the paper. Xiaomi is a pioneering Internet brand; however, its development is obvious to all:it has made considerable achievements and been very popular both at home and abroad. What lead to Xiaomi’s huge success are as follows: Xiaomi’s unique product positioning and marketing strategy, its marketing idea of "product is marketing, service is marketing", Xiaomi team’s good understanding of mobile Internet features and strong sense of new social media, and the strong support from the companies Lei Jun has invested in:all these are the cornerstones of Xiaomi’s glorious history. As for the future of Xiaomi, some people are optimistic and some others are pessimistic. However, Xiaomi, as an entrepreneurial company with Chinese characteristics, not only represents an enterprise but also stand for the innovation and inspiration spirit of Chinese. We have reason to believe, on the international stage, domestic brands will become better and better and turn into a splendid scenery. |
PDF Full Text Request