This article is from: Ainongji Digital Alliance Member Shetian Contributions from. His WeChat We Media is "Zhichi".

For Xiaomi, which has a valuation of 10 billion yuan, it is not easy to simply follow the sales hotspots to do what new projects are not. A product that does not help to raise Xiaomi's valuation will not make Xiaomi interested in investing much effort in it.

The first batch of engineering machines of the Xiaomi router has been sent out, and some people have received the physical objects. It can be predicted that the unpacking photos will appear in the media in succession, and several traditional arguments will be repeated:

• Xiaomi makes a router to be an entrance;
• Xiaomi makes a router to repair Xiaomi boxes and Xiaomi TVs;
• The Xiaomi router is designed to expand the MIUI device group.

Of course, it is possible that the reader is not very clear about these three arguments, so it can be briefly described as follows:

1. It is generally believed that the router is the entrance to the home wireless network. If you occupy this entrance, you can use it to distribute content and occupy the commanding height of the channel. For example, directly push an advertisement through a router.
2. Both Xiaomi Box and TV have a competitive relationship with the traditional radio and television system, so the development of Xiaomi Box and TV shows some twists and turns. Obviously, among the media and consumers, many people think that putting some controversial content on the router can avoid this policy risk.
3. What is the biggest competitiveness of Xiaomi TV? Besides price, it is MIUI. There is a home data hub that cooperates with MIUI, so all devices connected to this router can become the carrier of MIUI. MIUI, like iOS, is most likely to become a proprietary system and independent ecosystem across platforms and devices. Not only TV, MIUI can involve more networking devices.

OK， None of these three points seems to be a big problem. This is indeed the obvious benefit that Xiaomi router can bring to Xiaomi.

But history has proved that what Xiaomi wants to do will never be so unimaginative. So what does Xiaomi Router do?

At first, I didn't think Xiaomi router was a big deal. To a large extent, because of the ready-made products (Apple Time Capsule, which is usually translated as "time capsule", the home wireless base station launched by Apple can be understood as a router with hard disk and operating system), it is not uncommon for Xiaomi to reproduce a MIUI version of similar devices. It was not until Xiaomi announced the "1 yuan public beta" that I realized that this might be a big game of chess.

It seems that the engineering machine of Xiaomi Router is sold differently from other equipment in the past. It adopts the "1 yuan public test". It means that if you are qualified for public beta (purchase), you can get this router for only 1 yuan. It is meaningless to talk about cost at this price. So it seems that this is really an open beta to collect market feedback.

But is it true?

Even if it was Xiaomi's first mobile phone, the engineering machine was sold at the official guide price of 1999. There was no problem with other complimentary services or gifts, but the price was not discussed. This may also be regarded as the rule of the hardware industry. The hardware enterprises in Shenzhen Huaqiang CNR Gongmiao also operate in this way when they launch new products.

Is it possible that according to Xiaomi's habit, the price is 1 yuan in the public test now, and the price is still 1 yuan in the actual sale!

This inference makes Xiaomi router a very subtle product. The price of 1 yuan makes the sales volume of this product meaningless. No matter how many units are produced, they can certainly be sold.

In fact, some people have offered thousands of yuan for the Xiaomi router that has been sent out.

For Xiaomi, the significance of these routers does not lie in how many they are sold, but in who they are and when they are connected to the network.

Xiaomi router has all the components needed for a computing device: computing chip, communication components, memory, hard disk.

Imagine that 100000 such devices are online 24 hours a day, and a Xiaomi network is ready to emerge.

If the single cost of the 100000 sets of equipment is 100 dollars, it is only 10 million dollars - which is not too big for Xiaomi. But what about a Xiaomi network? The value can be measured in billions of dollars.

What can a Xiaomi autonomous networking network do? In the most straightforward way, every Xiaomi router can become a "mining machine", and Xiaomi network can issue "Bitcoin" that can at least consume Xiaomi services!

Xiaomi Network is a speculation, but this speculation can make Xiaomi from a consumer electronics or Internet company to a comprehensive giant comparable to BAT.

So there is no reason why Xiaomi doesn't do this.

After all, the sales of wireless routers are relatively stable every year, and the total market share is basically in the order of one million. Even if Xiaomi routers sell one million units a year, the sales of Xiaomi mobile phones are not significant. It is not reliable to promote new revenue growth only by selling routers.

For Xiaomi, which has a valuation of 10 billion yuan, it is not easy to simply follow the sales hotspots to do what new projects are not. A product that does not help to raise Xiaomi's valuation will not make Xiaomi interested in investing much effort in it.

Therefore, there is no millet soy milk machine at present, and millet earphones and millet power supplies are ODM products like other accessories.

As a key self research project in 2014, the significance and ecosystem of Xiaomi router must surpass that of Xiaomi mobile phones. In my poor imagination, only Xiaomi Network meets this standard.

But if this speculation is true, then it is likely to encounter such market problems later:

First, the purchase of Xiaomi routers will not be autonomous enough. Xiaomi doesn't care how much consumers pay for routers, but more importantly, who buys them and who uses them. Therefore, the purchase qualification review will be more strict. Having a Xiaomi router will become a privilege. As we all know, there is rent-seeking with privileges, and rent-seeking will be factionalism and cause consumers to rebound.

Secondly, the functions of the Xiaomi router are highly assembleable and debuggable to meet the various needs of the target consumers of the Xiaomi router. This is also to enable target users to maintain the device on the network and support the establishment of Xiaomi network. In this assessment, it is not surprising that the so-called self assembly or highly free setting and modification are not surprising. But to what extent will these enthusiasts support some distributed computing services running on the Xiaomi network?

Finally, the omnipresent dealers will definitely get involved in this product. The sale of Hongmi shows that Xiaomi does not have enough control over the terminal sales channels. Needless to say, even Amazon has started to buy the Xiaomi 3, which is priced 500 higher, with thousands of red rice phones sold on Taobao with "sufficient supply". Can the 1-yuan strategy of Xiaomi router be effectively implemented? This is undoubtedly a challenge.