Double Ultra launch, how far is Xiaomi from 2 trillion yuan market value?

Wen| Tech Planet Wang Lin

In the 310 days after the launch of Xiaomi SU7, Xiaomi Group’s share price nearly tripled, and its market value exceeded one trillion Hong Kong dollars. Then, in just 20 days, the market value exceeded 1.4 trillion yuan, and the market finally no longer underestimated Xiaomi.

On the evening of February 27, Xiaomi held a 15 Ultra and Xiaomi SU 7 Ultra launch conference. ldquo; On the day the Double Ultra was released, Xiaomi’s share price soared at the opening session, reaching HK$58.7. Lei Jun overtook Nongfu Spring founder Zhong Shanshan and briefly became the new richest man in China.

“Rice noodles and rice black people went crazy at the same time. Can the market value of millet exceed 2 trillion yuan? They asked together. In the past year, due to the release of Xiaomi SU7 cars, Xiaomi Group and Lei Jun himself have become one of the most watched companies/entrepreneurs in the technology circle.

The sales of Xiaomi SU7 have also allowed Xiaomi Group to successfully break through the ceiling of imagination. With just one car, Xiaomi ranks third in the weekly sales list of brands with new forces in car-building.

On the other hand, Xiaomi Mobile has adhered to its high-end strategy for more than five years and has achieved results. Lu Weibing, president of Xiaomi’s mobile phone department, said that Xiaomi has now stabilized its price of 4000+. His confidence is that, according to third-party data, in the price range of 4000 – 5000 yuan, Xiaomi’s market share of high-end smartphones reached 22.6%, an increase of 9.7 percentage points year-on-year, and finally stood in the first position in the the mainland of China market. The overall market share of Xiaomi’s mobile phones has reached the second largest in China.

Xiaomi continues to consolidate its results. At the Double Ultra press conference on February 27, Lei Jun said that these two products are answers to high-end exploration. Today, these two ultra-high-end products are beginning to be tested by the market for the first time.

Two Ultra products launched together

Xiaomi 15 Ultra and Xiaomi SU 7 Ultra are the two high-end products released by Xiaomi Group since its establishment. The former starts at 6499 yuan, while the latter starts at 529,900 yuan.

The Xiaomi 15 Utlra mobile phone, which is the flagship series of imaging, is not a popular model. Whether it is Xiaomi, OPPO, or vivo, the imaging flagship series more carries the ambition of mobile phone manufacturers to attack high-end, and demonstrates their technical strength.

Due to its positioning, the Ultra series has a particularly large camera module and has never felt good. At the press conference, Lu Weibing said that the Xiaomi 15 Ultra is currently the best touch, with 4 colors and the strongest communication system in Xiaomi’s history, and said it is the most satisfying work in history.

In terms of imaging capabilities, the Xiaomi 15 Ultra has Leica Optics Professional Four-Camera, Leica Ultra-Pure Optical System, new materials, new technologies, and new processes. It is also equipped with Leica 1-inch main camera, Leica 200 million ultra-long photoshots, etc. Compared with the various upgrades of the 14 Ultra and the 15Ultra, the volume increases are not increased. It will officially go on sale at 10 a.m. on March 3.

As early as 22 days before the press conference, the Xiaomi 15 Utlra opened reservations. An employee of Xiaomi Home store in a prefecture-level city in the Pearl River Delta region told Tech Planet that their store had completed the booking target of two units. He said that large local stores with monthly sales of more than 1 million yuan have blindly subscribed to 7 units. At present, the situation of 15Ultra and 14Ultra is similar.

The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra car was opened for pre-orders as early as the end of October 2024, and it had already made its debut with its New North track results before it was launched. On this year’s Lantern Festival, Lei Jun also invited seven would-be car owners to have dinner in the canteen of Xiaomi Science and Technology Park. These people were even car owners of the BMW M5 with a landing price of 1.9 million yuan.

Xiaomi SU7 Ultra has 5 colors. This is because Xiaomi did user research and found that not only performance car users like the SU7 Ultra, but also traditional luxury car users, and female users also like it. In order to meet the needs of more types of users, the colors have been upgraded from 2 to 5.

The goal of the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra is to become the fastest four-door production car on the surface. It is equipped with the Xiaomi Super Three Motor System and comes standard with a track version of the cooling system and braking system. New North adjusts the chassis system, and the standard version can be directly on the track. At the press conference, the pricing announced by Lei Jun was 285,000 lower than the pre-sale price of 814,900 yuan in October last year, which is almost a difference from the Xiaomi SU7 Max. Xiaomi launched a limited edition in New North with a price of 814,900 yuan.

This time Xiaomi prepared a small number of existing cars. At the same time, users can have priority delivery rights: they can give priority to snapping up existing cars, or make personalized customization and priority production scheduling. The Xiaomi SU7 lock order has not been delivered to users, so they can be replaced with Ultra. The limited time is from 10:00 tonight to 24:00 on March 2.

Xiaomi’s annual sales target of 10,000 units is equal to twice the annual sales of Tesla Model S Plaid, BMW M-Series and Porsche Tanyan in China. Lei Jun said in a recent Weibo post that he is 90% sure of achieving this goal.

The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra is scheduled to open for 10 minutes, and the number will exceed 6900 units.

Lei Jun said that these two Ultra products are the answers to Xiaomi’s high-end exploration in the past five years and the starting point for Xiaomi to move into the ultra-high-end market. This dual Ultra launch conference will open a new era.

High-end cars?

In the past five years, one of Xiaomi Group’s core strategic goals has been high-end. On the afternoon of the first day of construction in the New Year, Xiaomi Group held a high-end strategy seminar.

In the three quarters after the end of the Xiaomi SU7 automotive technology conference at the end of 2023, the year-on-year growth rate of Xiaomi’s mobile phone shipments in a single quarter has been on an upward trend, even reaching 43.1 million units in the third quarter of 2024.

According to Xiaomi’s financial report, in the third quarter of 2024, the proportion of Xiaomi mobile phones has reached 28.7%. This is the price band for high-end mobile phones. At the press conference on February 27, Lu Weibing said that the main goal of Xiaomi’s mobile phone in the future is to stabilize the price band of 6000+.

“The price of mainstream models sold in our stores has stabilized at the range of 3000 yuan to 5000 yuan. A shop assistant at Xiaomi Home in Beijing told Tech Planet that the starting price of Xiaomi 15 is 500 yuan higher than that of Xiaomi 14, but after selling it for several months, we actually rarely hear consumers complain about the high price, but are more concerned about color matching issues. rdquo;

Omdia’s report pointed out that Xiaomi’s performance in 2024 was amazing, ranking third in the world with shipments of 169 million units, an increase of more than 20 million units from the previous year. Even taking into account the 7% growth rate of overall shipments in the mobile phone market in 2024, Xiaomi’s growth is much higher than the industry average.

Illustration: Mapping Tech Planet, data source is Xiaomi’s financial report.

The growth rate of Xiaomi’s mobile phones shows no sign of slowing down. According to market research data, in January 2025, the activation volume of Xiaomi’s mobile phones reached 5.7053 million units, with a market share of 17.34%, a year-on-year increase of 42.49%, ranking among the top five mobile phone brands in the world.

Industry insiders believe that the SU7 car has opened the ceiling for Xiaomi’s high-end development.

Last year, Xiaomi released the first-month car portrait data on the Xiaomi SU7 at the Beijing Auto Show conference was very interesting. More than half of the people who buy Xiaomi SU7 are Apple users, and nearly half are female car owners. 30% of the car owners own Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi. BBA (Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi) users account for 29%.

As of the end of last year, Xiaomi Automobile had delivered 135,000 units of its SU7 model alone, almost creating an industry miracle. It took nearly three years for NIO, Zero Run, Xiaopeng and Celis to sell 100,000 vehicles.

Ten minutes after the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra car opened for reservations, the number of small orders exceeded 3680. You know, BMW Mpower’s sales in China are only over 3000 units. The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra, which is full of technology and performance, is the most successful evidence of Xiaomi’s high-end drive. This is only the second car produced by Xiaomi. It is no exaggeration to say that Xiaomi’s high-end strategy has been more than half successful.

The exit of Xiaomi cars from the circle has indeed benefited mobile phone sales, but the average price of mobile phones is a different story.

Illustration: Mapping Tech Planet, data source is Xiaomi’s financial report.

Tech Planet combed Xiaomi Group’s financial reports from Q1 to 2024 Q3 and found that the average selling price of Xiaomi’s mobile phone ASP (Average Selling Price) has not increased significantly due to the breaking of the SU7 car. In Q1 and Q2 of 2024, ASP even showed a downward trend.

Counterpoint data shows that the average selling price of global smartphones ASP in 2024Q3 is US$349. The average selling prices of the five major manufacturers are: US$909 for Apple, US$295 for Samsung, US$246 for OPPO, US$214 for vivo, and US$148 for Xiaomi (about 1076 yuan).

“There is a big gap in user portraits between cars and mobile phones, said a Xiaomi employee. After all, if you want to afford the 215,900 + Xiaomi SU7, most of them are middle-income groups with an annual income of 500,000. These people are often loyal users of Apple.

High-end is not a pile of materials, but also a good story

After Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, there was an internal conversation in which he explained his understanding of the brand. He said that Nike’s advertisements never mention Air Sole air cushions, nor do they say how their own air cushions are better than Reebok’s. They praise great competitive sports and athletes.

At first, Xiaomi’s mobile phone eliminated miscellaneous smartphones with a super low price of 1999 yuan. Classic Lei Jun-style press conferences often introduce configurations and set up Buntu to score points, giving users the feeling that every penny is worth spent. Xiaomi’s price/performance tag is also deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

However, the failure of the Xiaomi 11 and Xiaomi 12 series has proved that high-end is by no means a pile of materials, but a unique, novel, distinctive and in line with the public’s aesthetic.

The logic in the mobile phone field is that even if the configurations such as chips and screens are fully pulled, the experience still needs to be polished repeatedly. Moreover, based on the strong supply chain, there is no obvious difference in configuration among each family. What Xiaomi mobile phone should tell may not be a story of configuration, but a story of brand tone like Nike.

But Xiaomi cars seem to have taken a completely different path than Xiaomi phones. Xiaomi Automobile has been telling the story of performance cars. Xiaomi SU7 and SU7 Ultra both went to New North to brush the track. The latter beat the Porsche Taycan with a lap speed of 6 minutes, 46 seconds, 874, setting a new four-door lap speed record on the track.

Perhaps, one day in the future, Lei Jun will no longer need to go to all the trouble to talk about Xiaomi’s five core technical strengths such as motors and super large die-casting, the configuration of Xiaomi’s SU7 series, and the track performance is the best proof.

Because, in the automotive field, the user’s default performance is part of the experience, and the performance of the car can be quantified. Users are naturally willing to pay for the Xiaomi SU7. After all, with the same performance, the Xiaomi SU7 is still cheaper. This is one of the reasons why Xiaomi Automobile has a place in the high-end market as soon as it went public.

Subsequently, Xiaomi Automobile took the opportunity to launch the documentary “646 874”, which recorded the entire process of the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra prototype’s first impact on New York North. This has undoubtedly greatly enhanced Xiaomi’s brand image and also given Xiaomi Motors greater premium space.

“Eight weeks ago, we started working. The question we ask is, consumers need to know: What is Apple? What does it represent? What is your place in the world? We don’t just make boxes to help consumers get work done or other things, even though we do it better than anyone else, and even in some places we do our best. rdquo; Before Apple launched the classic Different Imagine ad, Jobs wrote in an internal conversation.

The same applies to Xiaomi. Lei Jun’s determination to hit the high-end has never wavered and has even become more firm. On February 6, Lei Jun wrote on Weibo: High-end development is the path we must take. We must not be afraid of loss or sacrifice, and move forward unswervingly.” rdquo;

The core question is that in addition to the tens of billions of yuan in R & D investment every year, Lei Jun needs to think clearly what Xiaomi Group’s products represent?