Liu Xiaoxia, brand director of Zimi: New domestic products coming out of the Xiaomi ecological chain

  There are many brands called a certain rice in the market, so many that consumers are confused. They all have a common gene: Xiaomi. Professionally speaking, they are all enterprises in the Xiaomi ecological chain.

  Among them, Jiangsu Zimi Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., known as the first brother of the ecological chain, is the first ecological chain company under Xiaomi. It was established in May 2012 and has been in existence for 9 years.

  Before the 2021 Vision Content Ecology Conference, Liu Xiaoxia, brand director of ZiMi, accepted our interview. We started chatting about ZiMi’s name.

  Just by looking at the name, it is difficult for consumers to judge its product attributes from the word "purple rice", and some even compare it to the agricultural product purple rice sold in supermarkets. Why is it called purple rice? Liu Xiaoxia said: "The enterprises in the Xiaomi ecological chain all have the word’rice ‘, which is the brand gene. Because we are in Nanjing, the Purple Mountain in Nanjing has a symbolic meaning and the meaning of purple gas coming from the east, so we chose the word’purple’. The seemingly random choice is actually the original intention of Purple Rice to establish itself in Nanjing. Now Purple Rice is headquartered in Nanjing, and its production lines are all over the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other high-quality manufacturing areas.

  Liu Xiaoxia said that Zimi is a brand that really does a good job in products. Xiaomi’s logic is to "find a first-class team to make first-class products". If the team of Zimi can be selected, it must be a first-class team. At the end of 2013, Zimi launched the first Xiaomi mobile power supply, which quickly became a hit in the industry. Sales have soared and exceeded expectations. Data show that in 2014, the power bank produced by Zimi sold more than 10 million units; by the end of 2018, Xiaomi announced that the global cumulative sales of its mobile power supply exceeded 100 million units. These impressive sales data gave Lei Jun the confidence to say at the Xiaomi conference: "There are only two brands of power banks, one is called Xiaomi and the other is called Other".

  The success of Xiaomi’s power bank has made Zimi stand out in the Xiaomi ecological chain. Zhang Feng, the founder of Zimi, is also a partner of Xiaomi. He once shared the thinking of making a power bank: "When Zhang Xiaolong made WeChat, he didn’t think about making money, he thought about user experience; when Cheng Wei made Didi, he didn’t think about making money, but to solve the pain point of users’ travel difficulties; my concept is that making explosive products does not make money, and super explosive products are even more so."

  ZiMi, which has successfully "started a business", has also begun to find an independent brand development path. ZiMi not only produces Xiaomi power banks, but also has its own brand products, including mobile power supplies, TWS Bluetooth headphones, Bluetooth speakers, portable routers, rainbow batteries and other products. Domestic mainstream e-commerce platforms such as Taobao Tmall, JD.com, and Xiaomi all sell ZiMi brand products. It is worth mentioning that ZiMi also focuses on launching enterprise group buying business.

  Purple Rice Electronics was famous for its mobile power supplies, and almost all of its products were synonymous with "high quality + low price". The netizens jokingly said: "Buy whatever you want, buy it with your eyes closed, no problem at all."

  Purple rice is a representative of domestic products from the Xiaomi ecological chain. Its appearance has completely changed the brand structure of the domestic mobile power market. Big brands have to lower prices, and small brands lose their competitiveness and leave the market sadly. Liu Xiaoxia believes that the real domestic product should be like Xiaomi, which is a good product that all consumers can afford.

  (Author: Wang Weifeng)