On 11 August 2020, Jun Lei the CEO and Co-Founder of Xiaomi gave an opening speech on the company’s 10th anniversary, sharing stories of their product launches and memorable moments over the last decade.

An internet company with IoT platform-connected smartphones and smart hardware, Xiaomi operates with a vision to be friends with its users.

With a market cap of $450 billion HKD ($58 billion) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, revenue of $49.7 billion (an increase of 13.6 percent year-on-year) and 1 billion devices sold in 2019 (up 7.3 percent year-on-year), it’s no wonder that Xiaomi is currently the world’s fourth largest smartphone brand.

Like Apple and other big competitors in the tech space, Xiaomi’s products span various categories. From air purifiers, to neck pillows and ballpoint pens, CEO Lei says the key question they ask themselves before entering a new category is: “whether we can build an amazing product that touches people at half the price of what others are offering.”

Lei’s public speaking and audience engagement has helped the brand become a household name globally. He addressed a public audience of 48.25 million people at Xiaomi’s 10th anniversary and in the same week, did his first Douyin livestream video, which sold 502.9K products, generated ¥195 million ($28.2 billion) in revenue, and raked in an additional ¥364,700 ($53K) in tips. Within one day of the presentation, Xiaomi’s Douyin account had increased their follower count by 1.5 million, taking their total followers to over 3 million.

An ambitious yet humble, serious yet entertaining leader, Lei demonstrated through his storytelling at the 10th anniversary address that the best way to serve consumers is not just to offer them a high tech, high value or cool product. It is to exceed their expectations.

In China, it’s said that “the consumer is god.” Lei showed this belief through his actions, right when Xiaomi was just getting started.

Being grateful

Before Xiaomi devices existed, the company was focused on creating its own operating system, MIUI. The only way to test it was to find 100 people willing and brave enough to install it on their own mobile phones, at a risk of their devices becoming useless bricks if it were to fail.

These original volunteers became known as the “first 100 dream investors,” with Lei changing the Mi logo on the startup screen to a list of their names as a gesture of gratitude.

(The red words below read: Thank you, brave gods!)

Personal charm & entertaining

A humble leader, Lei showed that didn’t take the words of his critics to heart. During his speech at Xiaomi’s 10th anniversary, Lei shared a video which made fun of his English accent, allowing the audience to laugh along with him.

High tech

Mi MIX Alpha is a futuristic phone which has a foldable display, unique from its competitors in the smartphone market.

Coolest product ecosystem

With the help of Xiaomi’s AI speaker, you can control everything in your home using just your voice.

“Hello Xiao Ai, turn on movie mode.” Close the curtains, dim the lights, turn the TV and AC, name a movie, and enjoy!

Best value for money

The first RedMi product retailed at ¥1,999 ($289), with a per-unit cost of ¥2,000.

At that time, Lei recognized that Xiaomi was a small company with no bargaining power, but he still wanted to sell through the best supply chain, which meant high sales and distribution costs.

Riding the ups and downs

As a whole, Xiaomi has been a solid player in both the China market and overseas over the past 10-years. There have been times when they have been the consumer darling, and times when they haven't been the flavour of the month. Through it all, Jun Lei has showed strong and thoughtful leadership, adapted to changing conditions and perceptions, not been afraid to try new things, and ultimately brought sexy products and an ecosystem to consumers at a fair price. He and his company are an example of slick and assertive branding coupled with efficient manufacturing, which we will increasingly see coming from China looking ahead. Congratulations on 10 years Jun Lei!

Consumer-oriented lessons from Xiaomi CEO Jun Lei