At the launch conference of Xiaomi 5X, Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun didn’t spend much time talking about the design of the phone like he used to do, but instead gave more time to Wu Yifan’s performance. He even expressed that he would like to keep up with the trend and ignited the crowd by shouting at scene: “where are my fans?”

Xiaomi, a company known for technological innovations and its user loyalty, seems to be undergoing major changes in its voice. What happened? Perhaps this is correlated to Lei Jun’s observation this year.

To be specific, Lei Jun has listed out a task chain that comprised of different paths, based on the shipment volume goal.

Xiaomi’s shipment goal is not merely made for the tech company’s comeback in the smartphone industry, but also to generate an image. “No smartphone company around the world is able to turn the tide when its sales volume starts to decline,” Lei Jun once said. “But Xiaomi is able to achieve it!”

In fact, Xiaomi is not the only exception like what Lei Jun says to be. In 2012, Nokia had a global shipment volume of 35.1 million, which dropped to 29.16 million in 2013. But the Finnish phone maker was able to achieve a shipment volume of 41.3 million in 2014. This is a typical case of turning decline to growth.

Lei Jun only said so to leave an impression.

To reach the shipment volume goal, Lei Jun realized that Xiaomi must shake off Huawei Honor’s chase and start competing with oppo and vivo offline as soon as possible. To do this, Xiaomi has to perform three improvements.

1. Software innovation

When Xiaomi was having a hard time, Lei Jun focused more on the development of technologies. It’s a choice of action that builds a firmer foundation while driving growth potential. However, it’s easy to tell from 5X and MIUI9 that Xiaomi is emphasizing on the optimization of user experience elements such as software and system. It’s not only making prettier UI, but also learning from Smartisan’s system design. At the launch conference on July 26th, MIUI9’s design director spent one third of his speech time talking about the new system’s features, such as quick find, information assistant etc.

2. Female users

According to Baidu’s index, only 30% of Xiaomi’s smartphone users are female, a gender gap only second to Smartisan. TouTiao’s 2016 Smartphone User Big Data Report shows that 43% of the users oppo and vivo took away from Xiaomi are female between 18 and 23 years old who live in small towns and pay more attention to entertainment features.

3. The next hit product

Lei Jun has learned what kind of target audience Xiaomi needs to work on, and therefore Xiaomi 5X is fused with features for female users. That’s why Lei Jun only made a short introduction of the phone’s specs, and put more efforts and time in explaining the phone’s camera and beautifying and photo-editing features.

But Xiaomi 5X has several important drawbacks in product voice being a strategic product for new retail.

1. What’s the core of new retail? Geek gene or female-catering features?

Lei Jun had also tried to utilize young stars’ influence to promote its products. Liu Haoran, a Justin-Bieber-like young star in China, had shot commercials for Red Mi. Liu is famous for its intelligence and talent, which fits right into the voice Red Mi wants to convey to its target audience. However, Liu Yifan is different.

I am not talking about Wu Yifan’s scandals here, but some part of Wu’s image that contradicts Xiaomi 5X’s voice.

TouTiao has previously made a report on Wu Yifan based on big data, giving an analysis on this pop star.

From the perspective of the fan base, Wu Yifan has two advantages that Xiaomi needs to compete with its rivals:

a. The number of his female fans is three times larger than that of male fans.

b. His fans are generally between 18 and 30 years old. Most of his fans are actually between 18 and 23 years old.

Unfortunately, these are the only advantages Wu Yifan can give Xiaomi. Looking from consumer preference, Xiaomi’s fans are different from Wu Yifan’s fans.

a. Wu’s fans generally prefer luxury brands. They pay close attention to taste when it comes to consumption.

b. Most of Wu’s fans live in first and second-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Suzhou etc. In other words, they are girls from big cities.

From these two perspectives, this group of users is not what Xiaomi 5X targets or the group that Lei Jun wants to win over from oppo and vivo.

2. Confusions in product positioning