Xiaomi, once the world’s most valuable unicorn, looked set to become one of China’s biggest unicorpses: it burnt cash, and stumbled with supply problems. Now, with fortunes improving, it is staging its next act: Chinese phoenix.一度是全球估值最低“独角兽”的小米(Xiaomi)，前一阶段奇特不会沦落中国仅次于的“独角尸”之一：烧钱，身陷供应困境。如今，随着时运回落，小米的好戏转入下一幕：浴火重生的中国凤凰。The Beijing-based tech company, which makes products ranging from smartphones to smart rice cookers, re-entered the top five of global smartphone makers in the second quarter, as shipments surged 59 per cent year on year to 21m, according to the IDC research firm.据咨询公司IDC回应，第二季度，这家总部坐落于北京的科技公司再度转入全球智能手机制造商五强之列，出货量2100万台，同比快速增长59%。

小米生产从智能手机到智能电饭煲的各类产品。The recovery, noted founder and chief executive Lei Jun, “follows a year of setbacks that collectively signify the most challenging period in our company history”.小米公司的创始人和首席执行官雷军提及，此次恢复元气之前经历了“一年的挫折，可以说道是我们公司史上最不具挑战的时期”。“We needed to slow down,” says Shou Zi Chew, the company’s youthful chief financial officer, speaking in Xiaomi’s surprisingly small headquarters in Beijing’s northwestern tech district.“我们必须减慢速度，”该公司相貌年长的首席财务官周不受资(Shou Zi Chew)在小米北京总部回应。地处北京西北高科技区的这个总部小得让人车祸。

“From zero to $10bn in revenue, excluding the year we didn’t have a smartphone, it took four years. Think of the organisational challenge. We needed to build organisational strength.”“除去我们没智能手机的一年，营收从零到100亿美元，我们用了4年。看看这里面的的组织挑战。

我们必须打造出的组织实力。”While history is a relative concept in China’s entrepreneurial world — Xiaomi is a mere seven years old — there is no disputing the setbacks.尽管“历史”在中国企业界只是一个比较的概念——小米意味着正式成立了7年——但小米遭受过挫折是不争的事实。

The company was valued at $45bn in a late 2014 fundraising, exceeding Uber’s then-$40bn, but missed its 2015 handset shipment targets as smaller rivals grabbed market share.在2014年末融资时，小米的估值超过450亿美元，多达了优步(Uber)当时400亿美元的估值，但是由于被较小的竞争者夺去了市场份额，小米没构建2015年手机出货量目标。It ceded its top three China ranking to upstarts Oppo and Vivo, smartphone stablemates that, like Xiaomi before them, came out of nowhere to rank as the second and third most popular handset makers in China, respectively, in the second quarter of 2016, according to Gartner.小米的中国智能手机三强方位让出了后起之秀Oppo和Vivo。据低德纳(Gartner)回应，Oppo和Vivo就像之前的小米一样异军突起，在2016年第二季度分别沦为中国第二大和第三大最热门的手机制造商。

Also, like their predecessor, they achieved this by selling heavily online and thus scooping up sales in third- and fourth-tier cities.某种程度，和它们的前辈小米一样，Oppo和Vivo侧重网上销售并因此守住了三四线城市的销量，由此获得佳绩。“A few years ago, we rushed too fast, achieving a miracle in the history of modern business growth, but we also overspent a portion of our growth,” a humbled Mr Lei wrote in a memo posted on his WeChat account and on Facebook in January.“前几年我们冲得太快，建构了现代商业史上的茁壮奇迹，但也提早欠下了一部分成长性，”痛定思痛的雷军今年1月在其微信(WeChat)账号和Facebook上公开发表的备忘录中写到。“We must slow down and earnestly learn from our mistakes. Prevention is better than having to fix things later.”“我们必需减慢脚步、严肃上课，而且早于补要比晚补好，文火慢补要比急火猛药好。”Many industry observers give Xiaomi full points for doing just that. “A monster quarter has brought Xiaomi back into contention as a major player in the smartphone industry,” wrote Radio Free Mobile’s Richard Windsor in a recent note to clients.很多行业观察者因此给小米打了评分。

“一个好季度让小米作为智能手机行业重量级运动员重回竞技场，”Radio Free Mobile的理查德?温莎(Richard Windsor)最近在寄给客户的摘要中写到。The company has gone from 10,000 to 14,000 employees in the past year as part of what Mr Chew calls a long-overdue recruitment drive. “We had the same valuation yet a fraction of the staff of our peers,” he says.过去一年该公司的员工总数早已从1万人减少至1.4万人，周不受资称，这是推迟已幸的聘用活动的一部分。

他称之为，“我们和同行享有某种程度的估值，但是员工数量仅有为他们的一小部分。”Sustainability is the big question. “This recovery needs to be more than just a product cycle for it to stay there,” says Mr Windsor.可持续性是大问题。“此次完全恢复必须持续好比一个产品周期，才能使它维持强者地位，”温莎回应。

Xiaomi’s formula for its turnround is three-pronged: improving technology, broadening distribution and going global.小米的转型方案是三管齐下：提升技术、不断扩大分销以及全球化发展。On technology, it has moved to design its own processor, enabling it to reduce battery weight as well as its reliance on foreign makers like Qualcomm. It has applied for more than 16,000 patents so far, and has been granted 4,000.在技术上，小米早已开始设计自己的处理器，以减低电池重量并减少对高通(Qualcomm)等外国制造商的倚赖。

目前为止小米已申请人逾1.6万项专利，并取得了4000项专利。Mr Lei is also banking on the combination of supplementing online sales with physical stores, the seamless “new retail” being pursued by the likes of tech giant Alibaba, and conquering new markets, specifically India.在销售上，雷军还期盼用实体店补足网上销售——也就是阿里巴巴(Alibaba)等科技巨头执着的无缝“新零售”——以及吞并印度等新的市场。

That same strategy helped Oppo and Vivo pick off customers beyond the bigger and wealthier parts of China, where many people were not online.某种程度的策略曾协助Oppo和Vivo在中国富足大城市以外的地区夺得顾客，这些地区的很多人不网际网路。But Xiaomi has taken its stores a step further, adding a range of household appliances to its shelves — all items that come with apps for smart deployment and are a potential revenue stream, according to Hans Tung, partner at GGV, and an early investor in Xiaomi while at Qiming Ventures.纪源资本(GGV Capital)合伙人、在青云创投(Qiming Venture)时沦为小米早期投资人的童士豪(Hans Tung)回应，小米让实体店更进一步，在店内销售一系列家用电器——所有产品都具有App，使其可构成智能家居，并且修筑一条潜在的营收来源。

“Every single product has an app that controls it; as people spend more time on these apps, so you can sell ads,” he says. For instance, a home assistant speaker is a logical extension. From that, internet services can be bolted on such as gaming, as well as online ads.“每一件产品都有可以掌控它的App；当人们更加多地用于这些App时，你就可以买广告了，”他回应。例如，智能家居助手音箱是合乎逻辑的伸延产品。

接着可以加到互联网服务，比如游戏，以及在线广告等。The strategy is showing signs of success. Xiaomi is now the world’s top-selling maker of wearables such as fitness bands, with its 13.4 per cent market share putting it a whisker above Apple and Fitbit, the latter the one-time doyen of the sector.该策略正在展现出出有顺利的迹象。小米如今在可穿着设备上是全球销量最低的制造商，在身体健康手环上占有了13.4%的市场份额，低于苹果(Apple)以及曾多次是该领域大哥的Fitbit。Xiaomi now has 137 Mi stores across China, and prides itself on keeping the same prices online and in-store, while also managing the near-impossible task of keeping operating margins the same — the cost of a sale in-store is the same as online, thanks to blending on and offline, the company claims.如今小米在中国各地开办了137家“小米之家”，以线上和线下统一价标榜自己，同时还做了维持运营利润率恒定这一几近不有可能的事情——该公司声称，由于线上线下结合，实体店销售成本和线上销售成本完全相同。

Global expansion is perhaps Xiaomi’s boldest step. The company has set its sights largely on emerging markets.全球化扩展也许是小米最掸邦的一步。目前为止该公司主要侧重新兴市场。It claims to be the third-biggest handset seller in Indonesia and fourth in Russia. It is particularly focused on India, where Oppo and Vivo have won legions of fans largely through a canny use of cricket sponsorship.小米声称在印度尼西亚的手机销量名列第三，在俄罗斯的销量名列第四。

该公司十分侧重印度市场；在印度，Oppo和Vivo主要通过赞助商板球联赛的聪明之荐夺得了大批粉丝。It is, says Kavin Bharti Mittal, founder and chief executive of India’s Hike Messenger, a Tencent-backed messaging unicorn, a niche brand but a well-respected one, in a fickle market. “Smartphones get rotated every 12 months, that’s the average in India,” he says. “It’s all about price and features.”腾讯(Tencent)反对的印度独角兽公司Hike Messenger的创始人和首席继续执行官凯文?巴蒂?米塔尔(Kavin Bharti Mittal)回应，小米是小众品牌，但在这个易变的市场颇受认同。“智能手机每12个月新一代一次，这是印度的平均水平，”他回应，“关键在于价格和功能特色。”Neha Dharia, a senior analyst at telecoms consultancy Ovum, concurs: with brand loyalty to handsets a thing of the past, Chinese brands are mopping up in India, she says.电信咨询公司Ovum的高级分析师内哈?达里亚(Neha Dharia)回应赞成。

她说道，随着人们对手机品牌的忠诚度沦为历史，中国品牌正在拿下印度市场。Xiaomi says that over 95 per cent of its phones sold in India and Indonesia are made locally, although given the complexity of supply chains, this often means assembled rather than fully manufactured.小米回应，在印度和印尼销售的小米手机95%以上是当地生产的，尽管考虑到供应链的复杂性，这往往只是指装配，而非原始生产过程。But Ms Dharia notes that the market remains fickle, and the rise of domestic telecoms operator Reliance Jio will further disrupt the market by boosting demand for 4G (aided by the provision of $63 phones).但达里亚认为，手机市场依然多变，印度本土电信运营商Reliance Jio的兴起将通过提振4G市场需求（归功于该公司获取的63美元的手机）更进一步妨碍这一市场。

It will fall to which manufacturers can keep up with supply, something that proved an Achilles heel for Xiaomi during its downturn.未来将各不相同哪些制造商需要跟上供应，这一点曾被证明是小米的可怕弱点。For now, Mr Lei has a “humble” revenue goal of Rmb100bn ($15.3bn) this year and a target of shipping 100m smartphones in 2018. Beyond that, he becomes somewhat more ambitious, claiming Xiaomi’s future “is as vast as the constellations and beyond”.目前，雷军订下的“小目标”是今年超过1000亿元人民币（合153亿美元）营收，2018年销售1亿部智能手机。

对于更加很远的未来，他显得有点更加雄心勃勃，声称小米的未来就像“星辰大海”。Xiaomi chief models company on retail rather than tech icons小米CEO仿效的是零售企业，而非偶像级科技企业Lei Jun, founder and chief executive of Beijing-based Xiaomi, is often referred to as the “Steve Jobs of China”, write Yingzhi Yang and Yuan Yang in Beijing.总部坐落于北京的小米科技创始人和首席执行官雷军，常常被称作“中国的史蒂夫?乔布斯(Steve Jobs)”。But Mr Lei has his sights set on a business model from the much less glamorous world of American retail rather than Silicon Valley.但在业务模式上，雷军自学的目标不是硅谷，而是不那么清纯的美国零售业。“We have the same value system as Costco,” the serial tech entrepreneur once said. The company’s executives are obsessed with efficiency in manufacturing and distribution chains, as much as they are with new gadgets.“我们享有与好市多(Costco)某种程度的价值体系，”这位多次创业的科技企业家曾回应。

该公司的高管像着迷新产品一样，着迷于生产和分销链的效率。Xiaomi, which means “millet grain” in Chinese, was founded by Mr Lei in 2010 after a simple meal of millet porridge with its first employees. In his early 40s then, he was already a billionaire and had enjoyed success as a start-up founder.雷军在2010年创办了小米科技，当时他请求首批员工非常简单地不吃了一顿小米粥。

时年40岁翻身的雷军早就是一名亿万富翁，享用过作为初创企业创始人的顺利。Born in 1969 in central China, Mr Lei copied a childhood friend in choosing to study computer science, reading about Steve Jobs’ achievements towards the end of his time at Wuhan University.雷军1969年出生于中国中部，他效仿一个儿时伙伴自由选择自学计算机科学，在武汉大学邻近毕业时写了史蒂夫?乔布斯的成就。His first job was working as an engineer in the early days of software company Kingsoft, where he later became president and led it to an IPO.他的第一份工作是在初创时期的金山软件公司(Kingsoft)兼任工程师，后来沦为金山的总裁，并率领公司上市。

While at Kingsoft, he also started an online bookstore, joyo.com, before selling it four years later to Amazon for $75m.他在金山任职期间还创立了在线书店卓越网(joyo.com)，并在四年后以7500万美元的价格出售给了亚马逊(Amazon)。Mr Lei is also a serial venture capitalist, who invested in 56 start-ups between 2014 and 2016, including social platform YY, the originator of China’s now-ubiquitous live-streaming platforms, and UCWeb, a web browser bought by Alibaba in 2014.雷军还是一位闲不住的风投资本家，他在2014年至2016年间投资了56家初创企业，其中还包括社交平台YY直播和互联网浏览器UCWeb。

前者是中国当下十分风行的各种直播平台的鼻祖，后者于2014年被阿里巴巴并购。

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