小米瞄准非洲市场，进一步国际化
Hugo Barra of Xiaomi on the Company’s International Plans
小米瞄准非洲市场，进一步国际化
BEIJING ― In 2013, the Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi hired Hugo Barra, a Brazilian-born, M.I.T.-trained former senior executive of Google.
北京――2013年，中国的智能手机公司小米聘用了在巴西出生，毕业于美国麻省理工学院的Google前任资深总裁雨果・巴拉(Hugo Barra)。
Mr. Barra’s appointment as vice president for international operations was considered a coup for the fast-growing company, which was founded in 2010. As the favorite of young Chinese buyers proud to acquire a home-designed product, Xiaomi rocketed to the No. 1 position in the domestic market in 2014 and was the world’s third-largest phone maker.
巴拉以国际业务副总裁的身份加入小米，被视作这家成立于2010年，正经历快速增长的公司一个巧妙举措。随着中国的年轻消费者越来越热衷于购买本土设计的产品，小米已于2014年成跃升为中国本土市场第一品牌，同时也成为全球第三大手机制造商。
Xiaomi’s market position looked a little less rosy in the third quarter of this year. The research firm Canalys said the company had lost its top spot in China to Huawei, another Chinese company.
今年第三季度，小米的市场地位看起来并不乐观。市场调研公司易观国际(Canalys)称，小米中国第一的地位已被另一家中国公司华为抢占。
The company has expanded its product line, developing home products like an air purifier, a webcam and blood pressure monitor. Last month, Xiaomi showcased a range of new products at a Beijing event, including the Redmi Note 3 smartphone, the Mi Pad 2, and the Mi Air Purifier 2. The event was packed with the company’s fans, all eager to listen to the sales pitch of Xiaomi’s founder, Lei Jun, who spoke from a stage much in the style of Steve Jobs and Timothy Cook of Apple.
小米公司已经开始扩展其产品线，正在开发空气净化器、网络摄像头，以及血压计等家居产品。就在上个月，小米在北京的发布会上展示了一系列新产品，包括红米Note3智能手机、小米平板2，以及小米空气净化器2。该公司的粉丝踊跃参加了这次发布会，大家都期待听到小米创始人，雷军的产品推介。雷军会在台上讲话，其风格近似苹果公司的史蒂夫・乔布斯(Steve Jobs)和蒂莫西・库克(Timothy Cook)。
Mr. Barra, along with other senior executives, were also in attendance. After the event, he talked about the company’s international strategy, and answered questions about the demands of the China market:
巴拉与其他资深高管也一同出席了此次发布会。会后，他谈了小米公司的国际战略，并回答了与中国市场的需求有关的问题：
Q. You are in charge of Xiaomi’s sales outside China. How are sales for smartphones doing in India, and in Brazil? Who is the competition in those two markets? What country is your next overseas target?
问：您负责小米的海外销售工作，小米的智能手机在印度和巴西销售情况如何？这两个市场的竞争对手都是谁？您在海外市场的下一个目标又是哪里？
A. India has been a terrific journey for Xiaomi and one that I’ve had the opportunity to be part of and help drive from the very beginning. In fact, I’ve spent at least 50 percent of my own time over the last 18 months on that market alone, and it’s been a worthwhile investment. From a standing start in July 2014, we sold three million devices in about one year, and in Q3 we sold more than one million devices, the first time we’ve done that in one single quarter in India ― in 2015 so far, we’ve averaged 45 percent growth quarter over quarter. We have also been investing significantly in India: We launched our own e-commerce website in Q2, and in Q3 we started our local manufacturing operation and opened a large office in Bangalore.
答：小米在印度取得了不错的成绩，印度市场是我本人亲身参与并从头开始一手推动的。实际上，过去18个月来，仅在印度市场上，我本人就投入了至少50%的时间，事实证明这样的投入非常值得。从2014年7月至今，我们在大约一年的时间里售出了三百万部设备，仅第三季度就售出超过一百万部设备，这是我们首次在印度用一个季度取得了这样的佳绩――2015年到目前为止，我们的季度环比增长率平均45%。同时我们还在印度进行了大量投入：我们于二季度发布了自己的电商网站，在三季度开始本地生产的运作，并在班加罗尔开设了一个大型的办公室。
Indonesia and Brazil are the other two large markets we’ve been investing in. We’ve launched our own e-commerce operation in both markets and are quickly growing our teams, plus we also set up our own manufacturing line in Brazil. The social media response and market reactions we’ve received in both markets are well above our expectations.
印度尼西亚和巴西是我们重点投入的另外两个大型市场。我们在这两个市场经营了自己的电子商务业务，正在快速培养自己的团队，此外我们还在巴西建立了自己的生产线。我们在这两个市场收获的社交媒体互动与市场认同远远超过原本的预期。
We are currently focused on the preparations to enter a few new markets, such as Africa, and hope to have some announcements soon.
目前我们正专注于进入非洲等全新市场前的准备工作，希望能尽快将最新进展公布给大家。
Q. Xiaomi is evaluating the market in Africa. What kinds of African countries offer the most promising markets? Cellphones made such a dramatic change for people in Africa who had never had a landline and barely knew what a phone was. A cellphone meant farmers could more easily market their produce, that women could do microfinance more easily. What are the latest trends in smartphone use in Africa that change lives in a fundamental way? How will Xiaomi capitalize on those trends?
问：小米正在对非洲市场进行评估。非洲哪些国家的市场是最具潜力的？非洲的很多人从未有过固话，甚至很多人不知道电话是什么，但手机让非洲人民的生活产生了翻天覆地的变化。有了手机，意味着农夫可以更方便地推销自己的农产品，妇女可以更轻松地办理小额信贷业务。非洲人民通过智能手机彻底改变了生活，这一领域最新的趋势是什么？小米打算如何抓住这些趋势？
A. Landline voice infrastructure in Africa never reached most residential areas due to economic reasons, so people had enormous difficulties in communicating with each other, often having to send messengers or travel. The revolution that cellphones have brought about in Africa, therefore, is primarily centered around communications, allowing people to make calls and exchange messages in real time. The two biggest innovations that drove this revolution in Africa were, one, the prepaid model in the 1990s and, two, smartphones becoming popular over the last couple of years.
答：由于经济原因，非洲的语音固定电话基础设施从来没有真正覆盖到大部分非洲人民，人们之间的交流曾存在很大困难，以前只能靠写信或出游。因此，智能手机带给非洲人民的革命浪潮主要围绕通信这一领域，帮助人们实时通话和传递信息。在非洲引发通信革命的两个最大创新包括，其一，二十世纪九十年代的预付费模式；其二，则是过去几年里逐渐流行起来的智能手机。
Africa is only starting to make the switch to smartphones. Of current sales, about 60 percent are smartphones in South Africa, about 50 percent in Kenya and about 25 percent in Nigeria. Only a fraction of the installed cellphone base is made up by smartphones and most people are yet to switch.
智能手机在非洲的普及工作才刚刚开始。在当前的销售中，智能手机在南非占有60%的销量，在肯尼亚占50%，在尼日利亚占25%。已经投入使用的手机中，智能手机只占据很小的份额，大部分人尚未更新换代。
In terms of Internet services in recent years, communications, social media, information and entertainment ― the usual suspects: WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube ― gained huge popularity and became dominant, leading to great improvement in the overall quality of life of the African population. Aside from these services, there are no apps that fundamentally change people’s lives in a large scale quite yet, such as on-demand transportation, O2O [online-to-offline] services, etc., because these services require integration with infrastructure that isn’t yet well developed in Africa.
在近些年的互联网服务方面，通信、社交媒体、信息和娱乐――例如最常见的那些：WhatsApp、Facebook、Twitter、Google、YouTube――广受欢迎，并成为市场的主导，这些服务使得非洲人民的整体生活质量有了极大提高。除了这些服务，目前还没有其他哪款应用能够在大范围内从根本上改变人们的生活，例如按需交通、O2O[线上到线下]服务等，因为这些服务需要充分融入庞大的基础设施中，而非洲尚不具备这样的条件。
Currently, the African smartphone market has two extremes: one, luxurious brands playing at the high end with prices inaccessible by 95 percent of the population, and, two, ultralow-quality products at the bottom end which are, for all practical purposes, essentially just feature phones with a touch screen, and little to no after-sales support. The African market is also notable for not having proper consumer protection regulation in place in most countries, which makes it possible for vendors to easily take advantage of consumers.
目前，非洲的智能手机市场存在两个极端：一，高端奢侈品牌，其售价是95%的人民无法承受的；二，最底层的，非常低质的产品，以实用为首要目标，基本上只是具备触屏的功能机，售后支持服务也很少，甚至完全没有。非洲市场还有一个问题值得我们注意，大部分国家并没有妥善的消费者保障制度，因此供应商有可能存在“店大欺客”的行为。
The opportunity for Xiaomi in Africa is enormous, i.e. to offer high-quality smartphones with fast processors, large displays and long battery life, with the goal of driving up adoption of mobile Internet services, at affordable prices and reliable after-sales service and support.
小米可以在非洲市场获得巨大的机遇，例如提供处理器更快、屏幕更大、电池续航更长的高质量智能手机，而我们的目标是以可承担的实惠价格以及可靠的售后服务和支持，促进非洲人民对移动互联网服务的接受。
Q. Will Xiaomi extend what you call the ecosystem ― the production of Xiaomi products as varied as the Mi Band and the Xiaomi air purifier ― outside China?
问：小米是否会将你们所称的生态系统，即小米旗下种类丰富的产品，例如小米手环和小米空气净化器，扩展到中国之外？
A. We are already selling some of our ecosystem products outside of China. The Mi Band and our range of Power Banks, for example, are available in almost all our global markets. It takes time to introduce more of them to other markets since these products have to be localized, thoroughly tested and certified in each market, but we are actively working on a few international ecosystem projects with our ecosystem partners.
答：我们的一些生态系统产品已经开始在中国之外销售了。例如小米手环和我们的各系列移动电源已经在全球几乎所有市场上线。要将更多产品引入其他市场，这需要花费一定的时间，因为这些产品需要针对每个市场进行本地化，进行充分的测试，并获得相应的认证，但我们正在与生态系统合作伙伴一起，针对几个国际生态系统项目展开积极合作。
Q. Why do you think overseas companies like Uber and Airbnb are doing well in China?
问：为什么你会认为优步(Uber)和Airbnb等外国公司目前在中国的表现很好？
A. They’ve done what they’re best at ― finding and hiring great talent and focusing a large share of their energy and resources towards markets with tremendous potential. I believe both Uber and Airbnb look at China with the same level of priority as the U.S. market these days, and I believe that is exactly the way to go about it.
答：它们做了自己最为擅长的事――寻找并聘用优秀的人才，把很大一部分的精力和资源都集中在具有巨大潜力的市场上。我相信优步和Airbnb近来都把中国视作与美国同等重要的市场，而我认为这正是最好的方针。
Q. People in China use smartphones in different ways and more intensely than in the U.S. With the popularity of WeChat and mobile payments, people in China seem to be using smartphones more creatively than in the U.S. Does that make China the leader in future smartphone innovations? Should U.S. companies pay closer attention to how Chinese are using their phones to gauge future usage patterns in the U.S.?
问：和美国人相比，中国人使用智能手机的方法不同，使用强度更大。随着微信和移动支付的普及，中国人对智能手机的用法似乎比美国人的更有创意。这会令中国引领未来智能手机的革新吗？美国公司应不应该更加关注中国人对手机的用法，藉此来估计美国将来的使用方式？
A. The mobile Internet has been evolving at a faster pace in China compared to any other market, as a result of fast consumer adoption of smartphones, extremely heavy competition among the leading Chinese Internet players as well as start-ups, in addition to vast capital availability and extremely active social media platforms that fuel consumer adoption.
答：中国的移动互联网市场比其他任何市场都发展得更快，消费者采用智能手机的速度十分迅猛，因此，中国互联网业界的巨头和初创公司同样面对着异常激烈的竞争。此外，该产业拥有获得巨额资金的途径，社交媒体平台极为活跃，这两者亦加速了消费者对智能手机的采用。
China’s Internet companies have boundless ambitions in acquiring users on their platforms through many different types of innovative services ― they also prioritize acquisition over monetization. Competition is intense amongst the large Internet players and start-ups alike. This environment is conducive to fast-paced innovation and continuous reinvention of business models, increasingly providing a glimpse of how smartphones could be used by consumers in the U.S. and the entire world in the future.
中国的互联网公司都拥有无限的野心，希望通过种类繁多的创新服务，吸引用户使用其平台，它们亦把吸纳用户置于赚钱之前。大型互联网公司与初创公司之间的竞争十分激烈。这个环境有利于创意快速发展，商业模式持续重塑改进，为未来美国以及全世界消费者的智能手机用法提供了越来越多可借鉴的部分。
In fact, some of China’s Internet companies, including Xiaomi, Alibaba and Cheetah Mobile, have started their international forays with very encouraging results so far. Other Chinese players are likely to follow and enter markets such as U.S. and India, which will intensify competition in the tech industry. U.S. Internet companies will learn and become more nimble in the process, which benefits consumers at the end of the day.
事实上，包括小米、阿里巴巴和猎豹移动在内的部分中国互联网公司已经开始向国际市场进军，目前亦获得了相当鼓舞人心的成绩。其他中国公司很可能会紧随其后，进入美国和印度等市场，这将加剧科技产业的竞争。通过这个过程，美国的互联网公司会从中学习并变得更加灵活，最终使消费者受惠。
Q. Virtual reality is considered a potential next big innovation. Some phone companies are making special V.R. headsets. How does Xiaomi see V.R.?
问：虚拟实境被认为是下一个可能实现的重大创新技术。有些手机公司已经在研发特殊的虚拟实境头戴设备。小米是怎样看待虚拟实境的呢？
A. We are excited about the potential of V.R. technology, which we believe is still in its early stages of development, and we’re watching this space closely.
答：我们对虚拟实境的潜力感到很兴奋。我们相信这种技术仍处于发展初期，现正密切留意着这个范畴的发展。
Q. Xiaomi has done so well being price-competitive, and Xiaomi prides itself on that. Is Xiaomi tempted to do a special, limited, top-of-the-line luxury smartphone where price is not a consideration for the consumer?
问：小米产品的价格十分有竞争力，而小米亦以此为傲。小米有没有想过要做一款特别、限量、业内顶尖、且价格并不是消费者考量因素的豪华智能手机呢？
A. Since the release of its first smartphone in 2011, Xiaomi has always been focused on releasing devices with top-end specifications and the highest quality components in the industry. For example, Mi Note Pro is Xiaomi’s latest flagship device and not only was one of the very first smartphones to ship with the fastest Qualcomm processor in existence ― the Snapdragon 810 ― but also pioneered a curved 3-D glass-back design that makes it one of the most premium products in the market, along with hi-fi audio subsystem, a dual-charging circuit and several other features not yet found in most of today’s devices, even at the highest end of the market. The main difference compared to other manufacturers is that in Xiaomi’s philosophy, top quality does not have to translate into high prices.
答：自2011年推出首款智能手机起，小米一直专注于推出具有高端规格和业内最优质零件的产品。例如小米Note Pro便是小米最新的旗舰产品，它不仅是市场上首批少数内置有高通公司(Qualcomm)现有最快的处理器骁龙810(Snapdragon 810)的智能手机，还首创了3D曲面玻璃背面设计，配备有hi-fi音乐系统、两个充电电路和其他几个功能，这些功能在现今的大部分产品、甚至在市场上最高端的产品上都难以找到。小米和其他厂家的主要区别在于其宗旨――高品质并不就等于高价格。