Xiaomi’s brand power is the key to helping this product break through.
The Xiaomi Eco-chain has finally started to use family sports equipment, but the first “big-size” is a “walking machine” that makes many people unfamiliar.
Last year, this walker named “WalkingPad” sold 6,000 units when it was crowdfunded by Xiaomi, surpassing the estimate of the manufacturer, Goldsmith – their previous prediction was 2,000 units. about. After crowdfunding, this product was put on the sale of Xiaomi, and officially entered the Mijia system in April this year. At present, the total sales volume has reached 200,000 units.
In China, the most popular family sports equipment is the treadmill. If Xiaomi wants to cut into this market, the easiest way is to use the Xiaomi air purifier in the past, directly in the millet brand and cost-effective PK industry big name. But this track is a bit different and there are new opportunities. According to Xiao Xiaoying, product manager of Xiaomi Ecological Chain, when they did a user survey, they found that one of the biggest pain points of users is that the device is too “large” in the family environment, not only occupying a large area, but also being suitable for running. The structure also makes them very “cumbersome.”
WalkingPad’s previous development took two years, and it has a patent that allows the running platform to be folded, but this can only be achieved under the harsh conditions of the laboratory. If you want to do a treadmill, you must balance speed and stability, and have higher requirements on the mechanical structure and weight of the machine, so it is difficult to balance the goals of “light and thin” and “folding”.
The conversion of scene ideas has become the solution to the problem at this time. Liang Xiaoying and the team found that if the idea is changed from the machine itself to the application scenario, the use of the product will change from “running” to “walking”, and the problem may be solved.
Liang Xiaoying said that in fact, domestic ordinary users are not so interested in intense sports. “The penetration rate of domestic fitness equipment is less than 3%, and Europe and the United States are more than 30%.” According to their research, 80% of people using treadmills actually have a speed of only 6 km/h.
In other words, the vast majority of people who buy treadmills are mostly used to walk.
On the other hand, from a medical point of view, protection for the knees and joints is not suitable for strenuous running for many people, especially older people, and brisk walking may be a better choice.
The usage habits of domestic users are also very special. According to Liang Xiaoying, with the rise of super-gorillas and Keepland fitness studios, more and more users have a sense of fitness, but because of the working hours such as “996”, many times they have to use fragmented time. Exercise, walking machine is just the right scene for such a stitch.
Image from WalkingPad official
Of course, as a new category, Xiaomi’s layout on the walking machine is also relatively cautious. After all, in the eyes of many sports experts, this is a somewhat ribbed product with insufficient exercise intensity and single function.
Generally speaking, Xiaomi only participates in the eco-chain enterprise as an investor. Only the products with the “Mijia” brand will be transferred to the internal team to follow. The walking machine was originally manufactured according to the standard of Mijia. It is responsible for the internal product manager of Xiaomi. However, when it is put on the shelf, it is first tested in the form of eco-chain brand, which is also uncommon in thousands of ecological chain products of Xiaomi. .
In fact, Xiaomi’s brand power is the key to helping this product break through. On the home fitness equipment, 200,000 is a very good result. The Xiao Qiao treadmill, which was founded in 2016, sold 250,000 units in two years.
But in terms of Xiaomi’s requirements for explosives, it is clear that the amount of treadmills is still far apart. Liu De, the person in charge of the ecological chain, once said: “There has been no one million units, failing. The single product (annual sales volume) must be guaranteed at least between 1 million and 10 million units.”
Liu De’s “passing line” is a very difficult test for the millet eco-chain enterprises. Xiaomi has adjusted its strategy from mobile phone single-armed combat to dual-engine drive of “mobile phone” + “AIot”. However, in the past two years, Xiaomi’s ability to make explosives has obviously weakened. Except for sweeping robots, there seems to be nothing particularly bright. Eye case.
Eco-chain companies are also experiencing their own growing troubles. In the product mall, the products of the eco-chain enterprises are generally more expensive than the Mijia products, and the natural competitiveness is also inferior. Eco-chain companies certainly want to open up their own brand lines, but they are out of the wings of Xiaomi, and it is not easy to be self-reliant.
In the case of Huami, which was established five years ago, it reported in the 2018 financial report that the income from the millet system still accounts for 77.3% of the revenue. The stone technology that has just been listed on the GEM still accounts for the income from Xiaomi. To 50.17%. WalkingPad obviously has a long way to go before it breaks. Perhaps the opportunity for this product is that if you can successfully expand the user base from the original treadmill users to the fitness-conscious whole population, you may hope to become Liu De’s “pass” product.