--- title: "Xiaomi's Ecosystem Isn't Enough, Lei Jun Sets His Sights on Tea Drinks! Are You OK???" description: "As a pioneer of 'Internet+', Xiaomi has been like a catfish, disrupting traditional industries that used to make easy money. This time, Lei Jun and Xiaomi are stirring up the beverage industry! On October 13, Xiaomi's 'Mijia Youpin' mall launched six 'Pingze' tea bags. In recent years, internet-famous tea shops like Heytea and Sang Tea have been thriving, sparking an 'Internet+ tea' trend. NetEase Yanxuan sells tea, JD Finance invests in tea, but Lei Jun was earlier. As early as early 2015, Lei Jun led Shunwei Capital in a $10 million Series A investment in Zuipin Mall, a tea vertical e-commerce platform." author: "一本正经" publisher: "New Distribution" email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com" telephone: "+8615854817671" published: "2017-10-24" language: "en" canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/xiaomi-s-ecosystem-isn-t-enough-lei-jun-sets-his-sights-on-tea-drinks-ar-89a7916c/" markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/xiaomi-s-ecosystem-isn-t-enough-lei-jun-sets-his-sights-on-tea-drinks-ar-89a7916c.md" original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_INybEDKduGvUid1pGjh-Q" translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E5%B0%8F%E7%B1%B3%E7%94%9F%E6%80%81%E8%BF%98%E4%B8%8D%E5%A4%9F-%E9%9B%B7%E5%86%9B%E5%8F%88%E8%A6%81%E8%BF%9B%E5%86%9B%E8%8C%B6%E9%A5%AE%E6%96%99-are-you-ok-89a7916c.md" attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/xiaomi-s-ecosystem-isn-t-enough-lei-jun-sets-his-sights-on-tea-drinks-ar-89a7916c/" usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt" --- # Xiaomi's Ecosystem Isn't Enough, Lei Jun Sets His Sights on Tea Drinks! Are You OK??? > As a pioneer of 'Internet+', Xiaomi has been like a catfish, disrupting traditional industries that used to make easy money. This time, Lei Jun and Xiaomi are stirring up the beverage industry! On October 13, Xiaomi's 'Mijia Youpin' mall launched six 'Pingze' tea bags. In recent years, internet-famous tea shops like Heytea and Sang Tea have been thriving, sparking an 'Internet+ tea' trend. NetEase Yanxuan sells tea, JD Finance invests in tea, but Lei Jun was earlier. As early as early 2015, Lei Jun led Shunwei Capital in a $10 million Series A investment in Zuipin Mall, a tea vertical e-commerce platform. As a pioneer of 'Internet+', Xiaomi has been like a catfish, disrupting traditional industries that used to make easy money. This time, Lei Jun and Xiaomi are stirring up the beverage industry! On October 13, Xiaomi's 'Mijia Youpin' mall launched six 'Pingze' tea bags at once. In recent years, internet-famous tea shops like Heytea and Sang Tea have been thriving, sparking an 'Internet+ tea' trend. NetEase Yanxuan sells tea, JD Finance invests in tea, but Lei Jun was earlier. As early as early 2015, Lei Jun led Shunwei Capital in a $10 million Series A investment in Zuipin Mall, a tea vertical e-commerce platform. From the trial of 'Discover Your Tea' to the grand launch of the 'Pingze' brand tea bags, Lei Jun is using his expertise in 'Internet+' to open up the tea market. He is no longer content with just investing. It's worth noting that Heytea's founder, Nie Yunchen, also started out selling phones. So Lei Jun's foray into 'Internet+ tea' is not without precedent! **1. Why is Xiaomi selling tea drinks surprising?** **After all, it even sells underwear!** Many people know Lei Jun as a tech enthusiast, and his pride and joy is the Xiaomi phone. Few know that Lei Jun's original dream was: 'I have a dream: to open a restaurant with many people queuing.' The restaurant that would make people queue willingly never materialized, but Xiaomi, which makes people queue willingly, became a consolation. However, Lei Jun's ambition has never been limited to phones. Many know that Lei Jun's most admired company is Costco, the largest membership-only warehouse club in the US. One of Costco's features is its wide range of products, but each is carefully selected as the best in its category. As early as 2013, Xiaomi launched its ecosystem chain plan, with Lei Jun setting a goal to invest in 100 ecosystem companies within five years. According to official sources, as of June 30, Xiaomi's ecosystem companies had reached 89. As Xiaomi's ecosystem chain grows, the categories it covers are also expanding. Xiaomi's products now include air purifiers, rice cookers, and even towels and electric toothbrushes... Xiaomi is transforming from a phone company into a 'department store'. In March 2016, it launched the Mijia brand to carry ecosystem products, with the slogan 'MUJI of the tech world'. It is said that by the end of 2016, the 'Mijia Youpin' app had 50 million installations, over 40 million connected devices, and 5 million daily active users. When Xiaomi first started selling non-tech products, fans were critical. For example, when 'Mijia Youpin' first sold towels, users were shocked: 'How can Xiaomi sell towels? Are you still a tech company?' Xiaomi learned from Costco's spirit, ensuring that every step from product positioning to material selection, design, production, quality inspection, and logistics is strictly controlled before launch. By adhering to a high cost-performance ratio, it gradually calmed fans' frustration. By the time tech company Xiaomi sold underwear, everyone took it in stride. Today, you'll notice that the number of users buying Xiaomi ecosystem products is no less than those buying Xiaomi phones. However, Xiaomi has remained highly cautious in the food and beverage sector, given the recurring food safety issues. This foray into instant tea drinks is a cautious trial. **2. Why choose tea drinks as a breakthrough?** **'Lei布斯' preferences haven't changed!** As early as April 2015 at the China Green Annual Meeting, Lei Jun said Xiaomi's next windfall would be in internet agriculture. Agriculture is a big pit, so why did Lei Jun choose tea as a breakthrough? He's known for promoting his love of coffee! According to partners, tea and ceramics are two symbols of China internationally. The tea industry has a long chain, from growing and roasting tea, to gifts, tea sets, and tea culture. So tea has high value. Compared to other crops, a pound of tea can sell for thousands of yuan, even tens of thousands. Only by starting with such high-margin products can you leverage 'Internet+'. Imagine, with products that already have low profit margins, wouldn't the 'Internet+' scissors shave them clean? From a market perspective, tea as a healthy drink is being accepted by more and more people worldwide. Over the past 20 years, global tea production and consumption have increased by 50%. And online tea sales in China are growing geometrically. Data from the China E-Commerce Research Center shows that in 2012, the domestic B2C tea e-commerce market reached 3.9 billion yuan, accounting for 4% of offline retail; by 2013, tea e-commerce sales approached 8.5 billion yuan. In 2014, Taobao's tea sales alone were 2.85 billion yuan, an 85% increase from 1.54 billion in 2013. Another data point shows that global annual consumption of tea bags accounts for 23.5% of total tea consumption. In European countries, tea bags generally account for over 80% of total tea consumption, with the US and France reaching 98%. However, tea bags are far from widely promoted in China, where they account for only about 3% of total tea consumption. **In the future, the domestic tea bag market will be the broadest blue ocean in the tea industry.** From a competitive standpoint, although Lipton is a representative of tea bags, its position has clearly declined in recent years. Long-term use of cheap, common tea as the base, coupled with frequent negative news in recent years, has led the post-85 and post-90 generations to form negative impressions of Lipton as 'low-quality tea' and 'low-class'. They no longer admire Lipton tea like the post-70 and post-80 generations did. Xiaomi's entry into the tea bag market aims to capture the minds of young consumers. With large profit margins, good development prospects, and a blue ocean market, Lei Jun believes the time is ripe. **3. Selling tea drinks like phones?** **Lei Jun oppa, Are You OK?** The 'Pingze' tea bags feature famous tea bases such as Lapsang Souchong, Dahongpao, and Jin Junmei. For about a hundred yuan, you can taste these legendary teas, which is a huge temptation for tea novices! Making tea drinking simpler for young people and freeing them from choice paralysis, the 'Pingze' tea bags are exactly the same tactic as the Xiaomi phone that offered 'everything' for 699/799 yuan! In a word, Xiaomi is selling tea drinks the way it sells phones. The widely circulated seven-character mantra for Xiaomi's success—'Focus, Excellence, Reputation, Speed'—is also embedded in the brand DNA of 'Pingze' tea bags. The founder of 'Pingze' tea bags actually resigned from Xiaomi. Qi Dongjie, who joined Xiaomi in its early days and worked as a coder for six years, chose to leave and start a tea brand. Xiaomi people seem to have a spirit of paying for sentiment: during his overtime years at Xiaomi, Qi often drank tea to stay awake, so tea was his first choice for entrepreneurship. Currently, 'Pingze' tea bags serve as a supplier to Xiaomi. We have reason to believe that Lei Jun may fully enter the tea field in the future, just as he was not content with merely investing in Zuipin Mall. Once he tastes success, it's hard to say whether he'll make a big push into the beverage industry. After all, even internet celebrities like Wang Sicong are making their own drinks, so it's not surprising for Lei Jun, who has a solid fan base, to cross over into beverages. However, with Aunt Dong Mingzhu's frequent missteps in cross-industry ventures in recent years, outsiders are increasingly pessimistic about such moves. So, crossing into beverages, Lei Jun oppa, Are You OK? No one dares to doubt Xiaomi's fan economy. Unlike fans bought by other brands, Xiaomi's fans seem to always be there. Lei Jun's biggest question is whether Xiaomi can channel its massive 'tech geek' fan base to Mijia Youpin. Can the 'Pingze' standard, backed by Xiaomi's brand, support these fans' trust in tea bags? Will they automatically act as word-of-mouth amplifiers, just as they did with Xiaomi phones? That remains to be seen. Source: Beverage Distributor's Treasure Book (ID: yljxsbd) **2017 (3rd) FMCG + Internet Conference** will be held in Chongqing in November 2017. The conference will closely focus on the theme 'New Forces, New Ecosystem', inviting **1000+ distributors, 500+ brand owners, 200+ B2B platform founders, and 100+ investment and financing institutions** to jointly explore a new chapter of cross-industry integration! Click the link below to review the highlights of the 1st and 2nd FMCG + Internet Conferences: [2016 'FMCG + Internet' Summit Forum]() -END- --- ## Copyright and AI use This article is sourced from New Distribution. 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