On October 9th, Xiaomi Auto WeChat WeChat official account was officially launched. It is understood that "Xiaomi Automobile" WeChat official account was migrated from "Xiaomi Racing" WeChat official account, and the certification subject was Xiaomi Automobile Technology Co., Ltd., and the certification was completed on September 21st.
It is understood that "Xiaomi Racing" is a racing racing game launched before Xiaomi’s mutual entertainment. Its owner is Beijing Kawara Tsutomu Network Technology Co., Ltd., a mobile internet enterprise invested by Lei Jun.. Xiaomi Racing started the public beta in 2019, and in October 2020, Xiaomi Racing released a notice of suspension, which indicated that it officially stopped operating because the agreement with the game developer was about to expire.
In fact, news about the progress of Xiaomi Automobile has been coming out in recent days. At the beginning of October, Xiaomi Automobile posted the recruitment of related automobile R&D positions on the Internet, including the positions of extended-range system design and development engineer, fuel system engineer and exhaust system engineer. In addition to personnel recruitment, many netizens released test photos of Xiaomi Automobile in Turpan, Xinjiang in August. At the same time, some people familiar with the matter revealed that the first-class and second-class battery suppliers of Xiaomi Automobile have finalized Zhongchuang Singapore Airlines and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited as the battery suppliers at this stage. In addition, it was reported earlier that Xiaomi Company has been approved by relevant departments in China to start producing electric vehicles, and various signs may also mean that Xiaomi Automobile is coming soon.
As we all know, since Xiaomi Automobile announced the construction of cars, the production qualification of cars has always been a difficult problem that Xiaomi Automobile needs to face. Last year, there was news in the market that the brand of Xiaomi car was not approved, and it was included in the concept of disorderly expansion of capital. It may not be called Xiaomi car in the future, but it can only be OEM for others. At that time, in response to this news, Wang Hua, general manager of Xiaomi Public Relations Department, responded: The news was untrue. In addition, it was reported earlier that Xiaomi Automobile obtained the production qualification from Beijing Baowo, but with the cancellation of the production qualification of Beijing Baowo, this way was basically blocked. At present, it is still unknown how Xiaomi Automobile will obtain production qualification. However, Xiaomi Auto completed the domain name filing of "xiaomiev.com" website on August 2nd this year, and the website is likely to be followed by Xiaomi Auto official website website.
It has been two and a half years since Xiaomi Automobile announced the construction of a car in March 2021. During this period, in order to build a car across the border, Xiaomi has invested a lot of money in building a car. Relevant data show that in the second quarter of 2023, the innovative business expenses of Xiaomi smart electric vehicle were 1.4 billion yuan. Lu Weibing, president of Xiaomi Group, later said that the actual investment of Xiaomi Automobile is even greater. Xiaomi is making the long-term layout of the automobile with the goal of entering the top five in the world in the future, doing full-stack self-research, and also building its own automobile factory, so the investment in cash flow is even higher than the disclosed figures.
It is worth noting that from the financial report released by Xiaomi in the second quarter of 2023, Xiaomi’s income in the second quarter is not ideal. Relevant data show that the total revenue of Xiaomi in the second quarter of 2023 was 67.35 billion yuan, which was higher than the market expectation of 65.13 billion yuan, but it was 4% lower than that of 70.17 billion yuan in the same period last year. Xiaomi’s smartphone revenue was 36.6 billion yuan, down 13.4% year-on-year. The official said that the decrease was due to the decrease in smartphone shipments, which was partially offset by the increase in the average selling price of smartphones. In the case of declining smartphone revenue, Xiaomi was also exposed this year that the number of employees in Indian companies has dropped from the highest of 1,500 to around 1,000, and more people will be laid off in the coming months. In response to the layoffs of Xiaomi India, the official response indicated that the decision of personnel adjustment was made according to market conditions and business forecasts.
At present, Xiaomi is still in the preparatory stage, and it needs to continue to invest a lot of money in building cars. Although Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi, once said: "Xiaomi is different from the previous entrepreneurship in the mobile phone industry. Xiaomi now has money and we can afford it." However, with the extension of the timeline, I am afraid that no amount of money can stand the toss. At present, we can only speed up the launch of Xiaomi Automobile, so that Xiaomi Automobile can usher in significant progress.