Li Wanqiang officially returns: will be responsible for Xiaomi market and film industry

One year after leaving Xiaomi, Xiaomi co-founder Li Wanqiang officially announced his return today. Li Wanqiang said,"In the future, I will be mainly responsible for two things: Xiaomi Market and Xiaomi Pictures. Pictures is a brand new subsidiary and is currently in the preparation stage of forming a team."

One year after leaving Xiaomi, Xiaomi co-founder Li Wanqiang officially announced his return today. Li Wanqiang said,"The retreat has ended and I have returned to the team! I will be mainly responsible for two things in the future: Xiaomi Market and Xiaomi Pictures. Pictures is a brand new subsidiary and is currently in the preparation stage of forming a team."

Li Wanqiang also revealed,"Recently, I have repeatedly talked about returning to my original intention, and never forget why I set out. In my heart, starting again is still for those tears in my eyes! In 2016, I wish all friends on the road to starting a business to be always young and always full of tears!"

When

Li Wanqiang left after claiming to have suffered a mid-life crisis, Xiaomi was at its peak. During the days he left, Li Wanqiang did not go to work. Instead, he traveled 10,000 kilometers south from Beijing in nearly a month. Li Wanqiang did not go to the Silicon Valley he had planned before, but stayed in Yunnan for a long time.

Li Wanqiang once told reporters that the reason for stimulating himself to take a long vacation was that he encountered a mid-life crisis. "I was born in 1977, and I am 38. It is the eve of '40'. Before you are confused, you are destined to be confused, just like the darkness before dawn."

Li Wanqiang graduated from college in 2000. He worked in Jinshan for 10 years and in Xiaomi for 5 years. A total of 15 years, he basically worked more than ten hours a day. He was a typical workaholic, always under great pressure, often anxious, and later to a large extent, some aesthetic fatigue.

"The midlife crisis is not all about age. Even 30 years old may have a midlife crisis. This is not necessarily related to personal wealth." Li Wanqiang said that the long-term high pace makes me think of adjusting and rethinking what I really want.

During the long holiday, Li Wanqiang's daily life consisted of four things: running, reading, taking photos, and being in a daze. When I returned to the public eye again in 2014, I did not go to work, but held a personal photography exhibition.

Xiaomi is at the forefront of the storm

. During the days when Li Wanqiang left, Xiaomi was at the forefront of the Internet in China.

Xiaomi's US$45 billion market value halo is also a miracle of unicorns around the world. It has surpassed Tesla's US$27 billion and Airbnb's US$25 billion, and is close to Uber's US$50 billion. But now Xiaomi's valuation is being questioned.

At the specific business level, Xiaomi is also under pressure. While China's smartphone market is stagflation, Xiaomi has also encountered increasing pressure from competitors such as Huawei.

During the Double 11 period in 2015, Xiaomi sold 1.03 million mobile phones and Huawei sold 940,000 units. However, in terms of sales, Huawei's total terminal sales were 1.193 billion yuan, of which glory product sales were 1.123 billion yuan, exceeding Xiaomi's mobile phone sales. 740 million yuan.

The survival of smartphone manufacturers is very difficult, and mobile phone foundries continue to close down. On the day when Li Wanqiang announced his return, even Meizu, which received a US$590 million investment from Alibaba, began to lay off workers, with a layoff ratio of 5%.

Can Li Wanqiang recreate the marketing miracle?

At the end of November 2015, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun published an article called "All My Yearning". At the end of the article, Lei Jun said:

"I can be sure that 24 years ago, I was as young as them. After 13 hours of train bumps, I came to Beijing alone from Wuhan. At that time, there were no high-rise buildings in Beijing, but walking in the Beijing Railway Station Square, I couldn't help but look around blankly.

What I can still remember is that four or five years ago, when I went to the United States for the first time after founding Xiaomi, I walked out of the San Francisco airport. The first sentence that came to my mind was what Jiang Wen said in the TV series "Beijingers in New York": America, I'm here.

So, after two months of searching, we found this sentence: All my yearning."

Lei Jun said,"Today's press conference is also a new starting point for Xiaomi to put down its burden and seriously make products. I think making good products is our biggest concern at present. In fact, I think we are caught in the dilemma of being first in the market and not being first in the market."

This kind of letting go is not easy. Lei Jun pointed out that Xiaomi is very conflicted and says it wants to let go, but (if) this Double Eleven is not the first place, everyone will be very sad. Therefore, at this press conference, Xiaomi made a statement: Xiaomi must make its products well.

According to the convention, Xiaomi releases its mobile phone once a year and makes financing once a year. But now, Xiaomi 5 has not been seen, and Xiaomi has not raised any more funds in 2015. Xiaomi, which has returned to normal e-commerce, is facing Huawei, Qiku, and LeTV. Joint strangulation.

Currently, Xiaomi is in a dilemma. Is this a temporary dilemma or a long-term dilemma, leaving a continuous suspense for the outside world. At the 2015 Wuzhen Internet Conference, the reporter clearly found that Lei Jun looked haggard and his improvement was poor.

In the general public's view, Xiaomi is a fast-growing company known for its marketing. Among Xiaomi's management, Li Wanqiang is also a marketing genius, skilled in marketing and creativity, and has made great contributions to Xiaomi's brand and sales.

Today, Li Wanqiang's return has left great expectations for the outside world. After the return of Li Wanqiang, who has been on vacation for more than a year, can he bring new ideas to Xiaomi under the leadership of Lei Jun, help Xiaomi break the bottleneck, and allow Xiaomi to resume strong growth again?

How will Xiaomi Pictures operate?

Let's first take a look at Xiaomi's previous actions in the film and television market:

·In October 2015, Xiaomi's press conference interrupted the press conference of the movie "Ex 2: The Spare Tire Strikes Back". The purpose was to announce Xiaomi and Huayi Brothers, a producer of "Ex 2", jointly invested in another producer, Xinshengtang Pictures.

The predecessor of New Shengtang Pictures was Shengtang Studio, which was established in 2005 by Tian Yusheng, director of "Former Raiders". Shengtang Studio is a team of screenwriters who have created works including 2014's "Previous Strategies" and 2010's "People on the Lost Road".

·In November 2015, at the award ceremony of the Beijing Film Academy's Golden Medal Award for Screenplay, Shang Jin, Vice President of Xiaomi Company, and Professor Huang Dan, Director of the Department of Literature and President of China Film Writers Academy, jointly announced that they had reached a strategic cooperation intention to fully support the academy's script development and short film production. The intention is to try to discover original IP rather than buy mature IP.

·At the same time, it was also mentioned for the first time in the press release of this conference that BG Fashion Black Gold Fashion, a young idol artist agency operated by Shang Wenjie, was included under Xiaomi Mutual Entertainment. Black Gold Fashion's business is mainly to tap young and powerful idols, adopt product-making ideas to package artists, and join the means of Internet companies such as market research, marketing strategies and product planning.

·The content team responsible for Chen Tong invested US$1 billion in companies such as iQiyi, Youku Tudou, and Huace Films...

To sum up, Xiaomi Pictures 'business will be very extensive, involving upstream artist training, film and television production, content investment, etc. This is similar to Xiaomi Mutual Entertainment's strategy in games. In the past year, Xiaomi Mutual Entertainment has invested in a total of 16 Internet-related companies, most of which are game-related industries.

In terms of distribution, it will also learn from Xiaomi Mutual Entertainment's experience in games. The channels using MIUI will be placed in Xiaomi Life, App Store, and Video Applications. The terminals include Xiaomi mobile phones, tablets, TVs and boxes.

It can be said that Xiaomi Pictures will be a very big game of chess. This practice is no stranger to it. At present, the one with the most skillful operation of this practice is LeTV Pictures.

Editor: vian