Author: Yuyan Editor: Zhou Zhiyu After the price of Porsche fell to more than 440,000 yuan, the price of another luxury brand BMW also dropped to more than 170,000 yuan, breaking people's perception of luxury cars. In recent times, many car owners have told Wall Street News that they have purchased the BMW i3 for around 170,000 yuan and are expected to pick up the car after the Dragon Boat Festival. Calculated by the official guide price of 3.539 million yuan, the landing price of 170,000 yuan means that the entry-level pure electric BMW in China has been cut in half. In addition, models such as i5 also have discounts of more than one million yuan compared to the guide price. BMW, a luxury car brand with a rich reputation worldwide, has been accelerating its fall from the altar due to the rise of domestic new energy vehicles. Since the rise of domestic new energy vehicles, BBA's electric vehicles have long been living in jokes. Now that the entry-level BMW has dropped below 200,000 yuan, the joke of "if you don't work hard, you can only afford BBA" is no longer a joke. Faced with the howling of the new energy era, BMW needs to work hard to maintain the value of its models on sale and uphold its positioning as a luxury car before its "new generation" models arrive. This will be a difficult battle. Loss Before this significant price cut, models such as BMW i3 had already shown signs of "price for quantity." For example, when some owners bought the BMW i3 in June 2023, the lowest price they got was around 250,000 yuan. By the end of 2023, although the BMW i3 had been redesigned, its terminal price did not rise due to the update, but had to continue to be reduced to drive sales. A car owner from Anhui began car shopping in February of this year. Initially, he considered models such as Tesla Model 3, Model Y, NIO ES6, ET5T, and even the Xiaomi SU7, and also took a look at BMW's ix3 and i3, but ultimately found that the i3 was more cost-effective after comparison. The dealer's quote for February was 240,000 yuan, and by the end of May, the quote was 187,000 yuan. After several conversations, the final result was picking up the car for 175,000 yuan. That is to say, the price of the BMW i3 has dropped by about 70,000 yuan from February to now. BMW i3 for 170,000 yuan is not uncommon, as many BMW dealers can offer prices around 170,000 yuan. A BMW salesperson in Beijing said there was even room for negotiation at 170,000 yuan. Although sales policies of each store differ, BMW i3s for less than 200,000 yuan are everywhere. The car owner mentioned above believes that he does not have any requirements for smart driving and just wants a cost-effective electric vehicle. The current BMW i3 is a very good choice for him. Among the several models he had previously focused on, the BMW i3 is now the cheapest, which truly confirms the old saying "if you don't work hard, you can only afford BBA." In May, as the price of Porsche continued to fall, dealers who could not bear the subsidies confronted the headquarters, and then BMW took the initiative to send a letter to its 4S stores, "due to the market background and the huge impact of domestic brands. It has been decided to provide many subsidies and exemptions to BMW 4S stores." This also gave the dealers more confidence to reduce prices for promotion. Wall Street News learned that the landing prices of many entry-level BMW models have dropped significantly, even the i5 and other models are affected. The newly launched BMW i5 has also not escaped the curse of price cuts, with a starting price of 4.399 million yuan and many dealers offering discounts of around 100,000 yuan. The collapse of BMW's electric vehicle prices has also affected petrol cars, with the entry-level BMW 3 Series priced at around 240,000 yuan. From a sales perspective, BMW's strategy of pricing for quantity with its new energy vehicles has indeed worked well, which is enough to lead the way among BBA and even the entire traditional luxury car track.

Author: Yuyan Editor: Zhou Zhiyu The weather is good today The weather is good today.

When company executives reduce their holdings, it always attracts investors' attention. When the person reducing his holdings is Lin Bin, the second most important figure in Xiaomi, things get even more lively.

According to the disclosed information, from June 4th to June 6th, Xiaomi's co-founder and vice chairman Lin Bin reduced his share of Xiaomi Group by 10 million shares over three trading days, realizing a total of about HKD 179 million (approximately RMB 166.5 million).

This has led investors to question whether Lin Bin has violated his promise not to reduce his holdings four years ago. As a partner who started the business together with Lei Jun, Lin Bin is Xiaomi's second employee and ranks second only to Chairman Lei Jun on the Xiaomi official website as the "number two figure" of Xiaomi Group.

In 2020, Xiaomi Group announced that Lin Bin and all entities controlled by him will not sell their direct or indirect holdings of the company's shares on their own discretion from September 15, 2020, for five years.

Now that the five-year period has not yet arrived, Lin Bin's large-scale reduction of holdings has naturally attracted market attention. In the past two trading days, Xiaomi's stock price has fallen by about 1.62%.

However, Lin Bin and Xiaomi's response was also prompt. In response to Lin Bin's reduction of holdings, Xiaomi Group responded that he had done so for public welfare.

Later, on June 22, Lin Bin made a detailed response to his reduction of holdings on his own Weibo account. Lin Bin said that in 2020, the announcement stated that the part of the promise not to reduce holdings did not include the 120 million shares donated to the Bin Lin and Daisy Liu Family Foundation, and all the shares donated to the foundation could only be used for charity public welfare. This time, in addition to donating some to Sun Yat-sen University, his alma mater, there will be more public welfare donations in the future.

Two months ago, on the 100th anniversary of Sun Yat-sen University, Lin Bin and his wife Liu Xiangdong announced their donation of RMB 100 million to Sun Yat-sen University.

Thus, the storm over Xiaomi executives' share reduction caused by Lin Bin has come to an end.

Xiaomi has always been generous in public welfare, with its Xiaomi Public Welfare Foundation and multiple donations to universities and research institutions. Lei Jun himself has also made donations to his alma mater, Wuhan University, for several years, and his donation of RMB 1.3 billion last year is the largest personal cash donation received by any university in the country.

Despite the impact of the recent share reduction and other factors, many professional institutions have expressed a long-term bullish view on Xiaomi. Morgan Stanley's report this year shows that Xiaomi is recommended based on its electric vehicle business valued at RMB 90 billion.

Xiaomi has always been in the spotlight, and any movement in Xiaomi will attract attention, especially now that Lei Jun has become the top figure in the automotive industry.

As Xiaomi makes further headway in the automotive industry, it will attract even more attention. While being optimistic, it will also require more investment in terms of technology and profitability.

At present, the production capacity of Xiaomi's automobile factory is fully utilized, producing Xiaomi SU7 day and night. However, as a latecomer in the automotive industry, whether in the development of new models in the future or continuous investments in technology, Xiaomi Automobile will still be in the investment period for the foreseeable future.

This also requires the management of Xiaomi to stabilize investors' expectations while making steady progress in basic businesses such as smartphones and IoT. Therefore, Lin Bin's reduction of holdings may cause investors to worry about whether he is pessimistic about Xiaomi's future stock price performance.

From recent performance data, Xiaomi does not seem to have such concerns. During the just-concluded 618 promotion, Xiaomi's cumulative payment amount through all channels reached RMB 26.3 billion, setting a new historical record and making it one of the few companies that generously publicized its sales results.

In the future, the influence Xiaomi has gained recently will continue to benefit the entire Xiaomi brand and will continue to be converted into performance for Xiaomi.

In addition, although the current automotive business is still in the investment stage, the efficiency of selling cars and making money is much higher than that of selling other devices. The just-set sales record of RMB 26.3 billion is equivalent to about 87,700 top-equipped Xiaomi SU7s. This year, Xiaomi SU7 is also aiming for an annual delivery target of 120,000 vehicles.

Investment institution UBS is also optimistic about Xiaomi, predicting that the shipment volume of Xiaomi's electric vehicles will be 100,000 and 230,000 in the next two years and expressing confidence in Xiaomi.

When the automotive business starts to scale, Xiaomi Group will have a new story. However, in this process, it also requires the management, including Lei Jun, Lin Bin, Lu Weibing and other executives, and all Xiaomi employees to work together to take Xiaomi to higher levels.