Today, as 6park said, the Xiaomi Group has decided to build a car and regards it as a strategic decision. But on the other hand, the specific form and path of Xiaomi’s car manufacturing have not yet been determined, and there may still be variables.
Affected by this news, the Hong Kong stocks of Xiaomi Group rose 11.81% and then fell slightly. As of the close, Xiaomi Hong Kong stocks reached HK$30.65, an increase of 6.424%.
However, interestingly, Xiaomi didn’t provide a certain respond. It just said ‘wait and see’.
People Close To Xiaomi: I Have Not Heard That Xiaomi Is Going To Build A Car
After the news that Xiaomi confirmed that it was going to build a car, media immediately contacted many people close to Xiaomi and Lei Jun. And the other party said that they had not heard the news that Xiaomi was going to build a car. A person close to Xiaomi directly stated that there is no reason for Xiaomi to build a car. He mentioned the following key points:
(1) Xiaomi still has a lot of opportunities in the smartphone market. After Huawei’s chip supply was cut off, smartphone production was insufficient, leaving a lot of space in the domestic market free. At the same time, in Europe, Huawei is also in a trend of substantial contraction. The sales of Xiaomi smartphones have a lot of room for growth in China and abroad. Xiaomi should give priority to its core market.
(2) Unlike Baidu, Xiaomi does not have much accumulation in the fields of autonomous driving and Internet of Vehicles, and has no core competitiveness in the most critical automotive intelligence.
(3) The car does not have a complete foundry system. And the difficulty of building a car in a self-built factory and manufacturing a smartphone is not an order of magnitude. Xiaomi’s experience in the field of smartphone manufacturing is difficult to reuse.
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(4) If start building cars now, they will be on the market in 2025 at the earliest. By then, the electric car army of traditional car companies such as Volkswagen and Toyota has already rushed in. It is difficult for new brands to compete with traditional car companies. New car players such as Xiaopeng, Weilai, and Ideal have seized the opportunity of time and took the lead in seizing a certain market when traditional car companies did not have ace electric cars.
Finally, he also emphasized that if Xiaomi insists on building a car, it is more likely that Xiaomi will enter through the acquisition of a car company. So the possibility of self-development from scratch is very low.
Xiaomi Has Previously Deployed In The Automotive Field
Before finally deciding to build a car, it has already made arrangements in the automotive field one after another. In 2014, Xiaomi invested in map manufacturer Kay Rucker. In 2015 and 2016, Lei Jun, through Shunwei Capital, successively invested in the new domestic car-making forces Weilai and Xiaopeng Motors. But they all focused on co-investment. Since then, Shunwei Capital has invested in Xiaopeng Motors in 2019. In addition, in 2019, Mercedes-Benz Passenger Car China R&D Center and Xiaomi’s intelligent voice assistant ‘Xiao Ai’ reached a cooperation.
Also read: Will We See Apple Car And Xiaomi Car Ever? Everything You Should Know
After that, Xiaomi also participated in the Series B financing of PATEO, a car system service provider, in the automotive field, and registered the trademark of ‘Xiaomi Auto Union’. At present, the general trend of smart electric cars has arrived. Tesla and new car companies are in the limelight. Apple, Google, Amazon, Baidu and other technology and Internet giants are actively deploying. It is even more difficult for Xiaomi, which started in manufacturing, to do nothing. Therefore, we will hear news as Xiaomi making cars from time to time. But this doesn’t mean we will see Xiaomi cars in the near future.
