10月19日口譯文章:中國的小米也正在轉變美國
小米是你從沒據說過的最主要的電話臨盆商。在這個紛紛的電話天下,蘋果和三星位於主導位置,一些已淡出市場的品牌比方諾基亞和黑莓還仍舊為眾人熟知。而小米(發音聽起來像“shower”一次中的“show-”再加之一個“me”)仍舊沒有甚麽著名度。
這個公司樹立至今只有短短五年,卻已在中國的海內市場(天下最大的市場)上成了氣力最輕的智妙手機供給商,而且開端引領一場異常勝利的國際擴大活動。
小米公司已預備好下周要公然他最新的計劃模子Mi5,這款電話異常值得入手,由於小米已超出了除蘋果之外的任何公司,將要向咱們展現智妙手機的國際化,而智妙手機現在已可以說是人們都有的放在衣服口袋裏的挪動聯網電腦。
中國和美國事天下上最主要的兩個經濟體,而兩國在科技上的主要性則是兩倍於經濟的。
三十年來,電話臨盆中的幹系可以被總結為“這兒創造,那邊臨盆”。(蘋果電話可以說是“在加利福尼亞計劃的”然則它確切在中國深圳臨盆的。)小米的成長則是浩瀚旌旗燈號中的一個,預示著這類幹系的停止。小米的電話物美價廉,並且更主要的是,小米公司旨在依附互聯網,這讓它可以樹立起最靠得住的臨盆和發賣體系體例讓天下都看得見。
在五年的時光裏,小米從一個最初只專註於計劃出一種新的電話界面到客歲打敗了三星成為環球最大市場的電話供給商。
小米的產物在中國風行到它在中國已成了第三大的電子商務公司,只是經由過程發賣本身臨盆的商品。2014年末,小米公司估值已到達450億美元,這個數字相較於它方才開端籌資的時刻根本上是增長了18000%。從好幾個指標來看,小米已是今朝最有代價的新興公司。。
許多人以為小米便是“中國的蘋果”,這個名頭既帶著對小米高明計劃的一絲驚奇,也有一種認為小米習氣性盜窟他人計劃的揶揄。這兩種反響都是有依可循的——小米有的電話確切很少有看起來不同樣的(Mi3),其余都根本是高度模擬蘋果電話(Mi4)。
這個公司是雷軍2010年在北京樹立的。雷軍是個電腦科學家,如今又是一個45歲上下的有才能的企業家。他老是無可防止地被拿來與喬布斯舉行比擬,既是由於他的精神和聰明,也是由於他喬布斯式的穿著咀嚼和產物推出。
固然小米現在舉足輕重的位置不但是和他的成長有關,也和若何成長有關。從一開端,這個公司便是在交際收集和電子商務都成為常態的假如下舉行計劃的。這類快速且偉大的勝利還要歸功於這些收集對象的遍及,這讓小米公司能站穩腳根縱情舒展拳腳。
小米行將實現的擴大將會成為它真實的財產。電話是全球需求量最大的一類龐雜產物,甩開競爭敵手汽車和電視好幾條街。對付大多半天下生齒來講,電話更是籠罩性占據了全部和外界交換的渠道。漸漸籠罩了除面臨面之外全部交換方法,除卡拉OK之外全部交換內容,除論價之外全部生意情勢。
固然蘋果創造了iPhone,三星推行了智妙手機,但倒是小米告知了全球若何發明一種介於奢靡品和地攤貨之間的堅固的市場和若何加大範圍來知足尼日利亞、印度尼西亞、巴西、墨西哥和印度的中產階層賡續增長的需求,而這個市場正在賡續擴展,不久就會漸漸成為天下上最大的市場。
如今小米捉住了一個機遇,由於物美價廉的產物也能造福美國的花費者。競爭危害一如平常,然則越是不把小米當一回事的公司越是面對來自小米的偉大威逼。
小米的成長標記著中國再也不純真是外國計劃的產物的入口國了。它是第一批采取新辦法讓中國成為計劃、電子上午和辦事行業的立異中間的公司之一。小米給中美公司之間的幹系中帶來了新的危害——這類危害並非在於中國公司會發明本身在鼎力大舉剽竊美國公司,而是美國公司將會發明他們從中國公司鑒戒的太少了。
【參考譯文】
Xiaomi is the most important phone manufacturer you've 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.
Yet this firm, only 5 years old, has already become a formidable supplier of smartphones in its home market of China (the world's largest), and has begun a remarkably successful campaign of international expansion.
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.
China and the United States are the two most important economic powers in the world, and that goes double for technology.
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.
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.
Xiaomi's 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.
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).
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.
Xiaomi's importance, though, is about more than just its growth. It's 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.
Xiaomi's 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 world's 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.
Though Apple invented the iPhone, and Samsung spread smartphones, it's 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 world's biggest market by far.
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 don't take it seriously.
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.