Xiaomi is the most important phone manufacturer youve never heard of.In the rich world, dominated by Apple and Samsung and where even fading brands such as Nokia and Blackberry remain familiar, Xiaomi (pronounced like the show- in shower, plus me) is still largely unknown.小米是你从没听说过的最重要的手机生产商。在这个纷繁的手机世界,苹果和三星正处于主导地位,一些早已退出市场的品牌例如诺基亚和黑莓还依旧为大家熟悉。而小米(发音听得一起像“shower”一次中的“show-”再行再加一个“me”)依然没什么知名度。
Yet this firm, only 5 years old, has already become a formidable supplier of smartphones in its home market of China (the worlds largest), and has begun a remarkably successful campaign of international expansion.这个公司创建至今只有短短五年,却早已在中国的国内市场(世界仅次于的市场)上沦为了实力最重的智能手机供应商,并且开始引导一场十分顺利的国际扩展运动。As the firm gets ready to announce its newest model, the Mi5, next week, it is worth tuning in, because more than any company other than Apple, Xiaomi will show us where smartphones -- which is to say the mobile, networked computers we all have in our pockets -- are going worldwide.小米公司早已准备好下周要公开发表他近期的设计模型Mi5,这款手机十分有一点应从,因为小米早已打破了除苹果以外的任何公司,即将向我们展出智能手机的国际化,而智能手机如今早已可以说道是人们都有的放到衣服口袋里的移动联网电脑。
China and the United States are the two most important economic powers in the world, and that goes double for technology.中国和美国是世界上最重要的两个经济体,而两国在科技上的重要性则是两倍于经济的。For three decades, that relationship could be summed up as invented here, produced there. (The iPhone box may say Designed in California, but it is made in Shenzhen, China.) Xiaomi is one indicator among many that that relationship is over. Its phones are well-designed and cheap, and, more importantly, the firm has been engineered to rely on the Internet, allowing it to build one of the leanest manufacturing and sales operations the world has ever seen.三十年来,手机生产中的关系可以被总结为“这儿发明者,那儿生产”。
(苹果手机可以说道是“在加利福尼亚设计的”但是它显然在中国深圳生产的。)小米的发展则是众多信号中的一个,伴随着这种关系的完结。
小米的手机物美价廉,而且更加最重要的是,小米公司目的依赖互联网,这让它可以创建起最可信的生产和销售体制让世界都看见。In a half decade, Xiaomi has gone from a startup focused on making a new mobile phone interface to beating Samsung as the No. 1 phone vendor in the largest market in the world last year.在五年的时间里,小米从一个最初只专心于设计出有一种新的手机界面到去年击败了三星沦为全球仅次于市场的手机供应商。
Xiaomis products are so popular in China that it has become the third largest ecommerce firm there, just selling its own products. As 2014 closed, the company was valued at $45 billion, an increase in value of something like 18,000% since its first round of fund-raising. It is, by several metrics, the most valuable startup ever.小米的产品在中国风行到它在中国早已沦为了第三大的电子商务公司,只是通过销售自己生产的商品。2014年尾,小米公司估值已超过450亿美元,这个数字相比于它刚刚开始筹资的时候基本上是减少了18000%。
从好几个指标来看,小米早已是目前最有价值的新兴公司。Xiaomi is widely referred to as the Chinese Apple, a phrase that carries both a sense of awe at its design prowess and derision at its habits as a design copycat. Both reactions are warranted -- some of their phones look like little else on the market (the Mi3), while others are almost-copies of iPhones (the Mi4).很多人指出小米就是“中国的苹果”,这个名头既带着对小米高超设计的一丝惊讶,也有一种实在小米习惯性山寨别人设计的嘲讽。
这两种反应都是有依难以确定的——小米有的手机显然很少有看上去不一样的(Mi3),别的都基本是高度仿效苹果手机(Mi4)。The firm was founded in Beijing in 2010 by Lei Jun, a computer scientist and charismatic serial entrepreneur now in his mid-40s, who is predictably, often compared to Steve Jobs, both for his energy and brilliance, and for his Jobsian taste in clothes and product launches.这个公司是雷军2010年在北京创建的。雷军是个电脑科学家,现在又是一个45岁左右的有能力的企业家。
他总是无可避免地被当作与乔布斯展开较为,既是因为他的精力和聪颖,也是因为他乔布斯式的衣着品味和产品发售。Xiaomis importance, though, is about more than just its growth. Its about how it grew. The company was designed, from the beginning, to assume that both social media and ecommerce were normal. The rapid and enormous success came about largely because these tools allowed the firm to do everything backward.虽然小米如今举足轻重的地位不只是和他的发展有关,也和如何发展有关。从一开始,这个公司就是在社交网络和电子商务都沦为常态的假设下展开设计的。
这种较慢且极大的顺利还要得益于这些网络工具的普及,这让小米公司能站稳脚跟乐趣弯曲拳脚。Xiaomis coming expansion will be its real legacy. Mobile phones are the most broadly desired category of complex goods in the world, beating out their only rivals -- cars and televisions -- by a mile. The mobile phone is also the near-universal source of connectivity for most of the worlds population, increasingly the gateway to every form of communications other than face to face, to every form of content other than karaoke, and to every form of commerce other than haggling.小米将要构建的扩展将不会沦为它确实的财富。手机是全世界需求量仅次于的一类简单产品,追赶竞争对手汽车和电视好几条街。
对于大多数世界人口来说,手机堪称覆盖性攻占了所有和外界交流的渠道。渐渐覆盖面积了除面对面以外所有交流方式,除了卡拉OK以外所有交流内容,除了讲价以外所有交易形式。Though Apple invented the iPhone, and Samsung spread smartphones, its Xiaomi that showed the world how to create a defensible market between luxurious and crappy, and to scale up to meet the rising demand of the rapidly expanding middle class in Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, India, cumulatively the worlds biggest market by far.虽然苹果发明者了iPhone,三星推展了智能手机,但毕竟小米告诉他了全世界如何建构一种介于奢侈品和地摊货之间的结实的市场和如何特大规模来符合尼日利亚、印度尼西亚、巴西、墨西哥和印度的中产阶级大大减少的市场需求,而这个市场正在不断扩大,旋即就不会渐渐沦为世界上仅次于的市场。
There are opportunities for the United States here since good, cheap products benefit U.S. consumers, too. There is also competitive risk, as always. But the biggest threat Xiaomi poses is for companies that dont take it seriously.现在小米逃跑了一个机会,因为物美价廉的产品也能教化美国的消费者。竞争风险一如整天,但是越是不把小米当一回事的公司越是面对来自小米的极大威胁。Xiaomi marks the end of China as a pure importer of products designed elsewhere. It was one of the first companies to adopt the new methods that are making China a center of innovation in design, electronic commerce and services. Xiaomi introduces a new risk in that relationship -- not a risk that Chinese firms will copy too much from the United States, but that the American firms will copy too little from China.小米的发展标志着中国仍然全然是外国设计的产品的进口国了。
它是第一批使用新方法让中国沦为设计、电子上午和服务行业的创意中心的公司之一。小米给中美公司之间的关系中带给了新的风险——这种风险并不是在于中国公司不会发现自己在肆意剽窃美国公司,而是美国公司将不会找到他们从中国公司糅合的过于较少了。
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