Millet wants to invest 200 million "make up" after sales: Denies funding chain tension

A wave of waves has risen again. Following the stagnant supply, the market's doubts about Xiaomi's after-sales service are still fermenting.

On February 29, the “Daily Economic News” reported that many consumers complained that Xiaomi’s mobile phone after-sales service calls were difficult to open up, outlets were too small, maintenance fees were high, and the cost of express repairs was too high. Only one day later, Xiaomi The phone immediately announced that "will invest 200 million yuan during the year to strengthen the construction of online shopping after-sales service system, involving logistics, warehousing and maintenance and other links," heavy gold shop maintenance service point to "make up" after-sales service status is very obvious.

Liu Fei, the public relations director of Xiaomi’s mobile phone, clearly stated in an interview with “Daily Economic News”: “As of today, 7 millet homes have been built, and another 23 are under renovation. By the end of March, 30 will be built. In addition, Millet's special service points will cover 163 cities in 26 provinces. By then, the combined number of outlets will reach 233."

Liu Fei revealed that in addition to the above short-term goals in March, by the end of 2012, it will reach 400 outlets in 180 cities nationwide. "The actual situation that these millet accompanied through e-commerce channel sales is expected to be understood by consumers."

Acknowledge some problems after sale

After experiencing controversies over mobile phone configuration and repeated delays in supply, Xiaomi finally signed a contract with the operator and started a real sales battle with major mobile phone manufacturers such as HTC and Motorola.

In recent days, Xiaomi announced that 150,000 Taiwanese telecommunications millet phones had been “secondary” in just half an hour. In addition to this massive supply pressure, Xiaomi is experiencing a new round of torture as a new brand of after-sales service.

The reporter saw in Xiaomi’s official website user exchange area that many consumers who had purchased Xiaomi’s mobile phones left a message and asked about the automatic restart and black screen failures that occurred soon after the machine was used. Regarding the repair rate, Xiaomi believes that it is still within the normal range. "At present, the industry standard is below 2%, and between 2 and 5% is acceptable, and over 5% is overpriced. Now Xiaomi's repair rate is 1.5%," said Liu Fei.

Xiaomi company said that in the pre-sale after-sales link Xiaomi mobile phone does have some problems, this must be acknowledged, including consumer complaints of repair and delivery time is longer and so on. While Xiaomi’s mobile phone carries out major sales through e-commerce channels, the cost of the channel generally accounts for 30% of the cost of the entire mobile phone. The company hopes to save the intermediate link to reduce the price of the mobile phone.

Maintenance network rapid expansion test capital chain

The reporter found that compared with other mature brands, millet's current maintenance point layout was significantly less, and in areas outside the maintenance point of radiation would have to transport the machine by express delivery, plus the time required for testing and maintenance This process is likely to exceed ten days and a half months. Compared with the previous millet company's customer service staff told reporters "under normal circumstances, return, replacement only takes 3 to 5 working days," the statement made by the millet public relations department has changed to "7 ~ 15 working days within".

"Millet's repair point construction is different from other mobile phone brands. In addition to the relatively short establishment time, the traditional mobile phone business is still mainly based on store sales, so that maintenance points spread out relatively quickly," said Liu Fei. , “Millet’s strategy afterwards is to consider not making money through repairs, and to save money for marketing and products.”

Insiders pointed out to the “Daily Economic News” that Xiaomi, which was the main player in the “high configuration, low price” model at the beginning of launch, had a low cost in the selection of components and components, and did not have the scale of large manufacturers such as Apple and Lenovo. The effect depends on whether the first barrel of gold can withstand the cost pressure. It is still worthy of attention.

However, Liu Fei made a clear negation of this concern in the market. He pointed out: “The team of Xiaomi’s mobile phone has obtained 130 million U.S. dollars in the first round, and will adopt 'software plus services' after the current terminal is launched. The model is profitable, so there is no such problem for the time being.” Liu Fei also revealed that there are still many venture capital companies approaching Xiaomi. “Some have been rejected by us, so we don’t need to worry about such a problem for the time being.”

When Lei Jun and the Xiaomi team made many clear comments on the tight funding chain, many factors such as millet logistics, R&D cost pressures, and the high salary cost of the senior management team still persisted. The aforementioned industry sources pointed out to reporters that relying on simple fund-raising ventures may not be a long-term solution. How to find a long-term and stable profit model is the most urgent need for the Xiaomi team.

"Obviously, the millet mobile phone that hopes to copy and recreate the Apple model is still far from achieving professional results. The migraine software like this is no longer an advantage, and the construction of the ecological environment is time-consuming and costly. It can be said that Xiaomi needs to make up the class. 'There are still many places in the industry,' said industry insiders. 'Mid-end and high-end products such as ZTE and Huawei's recently launched large-scale products are direct competitors of Xiaomi, and the current sales situation in both countries is extremely fierce.'