2024-07-23
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On July 19, Xiaomi held a new product launch conference in Beijing. At the conference, Lei Jun not only talked about his own journey in car manufacturing, but also brought a number of blockbuster new products including Xiaomi MIX Flip, Xiaomi MIX Fold4, Xiaomi Mi Band 9, and Redmi K70 Extreme Edition.
In Xiao Lei's prediction, as Xiaomi's first small folding screen mobile phone, Xiaomi MIX Flip is likely to attract a lot of attention.Unexpectedly, the first thing to become popular was the accessory that was launched at the same time as MIX Flip - the MIX Flip portable camera set, which gives a sense of "reversing the Tiangang".
Recently, social platforms have been filled with a large number of posts related to Xiaomi Polaroid. If you don’t pay attention to the digital circle, you might wonder: When did Xiaomi start making Polaroid?
Image source: Xiaohongshu
That’s right, after cars, Xiaomi has now set its sights on the retro Polaroid camera market.
Just yesterday, a topic #小米照片纸2元 became a hot search. Xiao Lei clicked on it and found that it was the MIX Flip accessory that he had overlooked. Among the hot search topics, the newly launched MIX Flip portable camera set was enthusiastically sought after by many girls. Looking around, almost all of them were positive comments, and comments urged Xiaomi to restock.
It is understood thatThe Mi Pocket Photo Printer Kit is priced at 499 yuan, which includes the Mi Pocket Photo Printer 1S + Interconnected Leather Bag (including strap) + ZINK Photo Paper (5 sheets), and is available in purple and green.The set uses ZINK inkless printing technology, which does not require ribbon cartridges. It uses color dye-based crystals embedded in the paper and heats the print head to create an image in one go.
Image source: Xiaomi
When MIX Flip is combined with the portable camera set,JustBy turning on the camera's portable shooting mode, the pictures taken by the mobile phone can be quickly printed as physical photos.Let the beauty before your eyes appear instantly.
It is worth noting that in the portable shooting mode, by switching the front and rear lenses, you can easily choose a variety of shooting methods such as touch screen, voice control, gestures, etc., and you can also use many classic functions such as fill light filters, and users can also perform secondary editing on the pictures taken by the mobile phone. Everyone understands, who doesn’t want to print a better-looking photo?
Image source: JD.com
More importantly, the photo paper of the portable camera set only costs 2 yuan, which is in sharp contrast to the price of a box of 20 photos from Fuji, which costs more than 100 yuan. From this perspective, it is no wonder that the portable camera set is called the "Xiaomi version of Polaroid" by many netizens. It is a perfect substitute for Polaroid.
Because the product is so popular, Xiao Lei checked multiple e-commerce platforms and found that they were out of stock. On Tmall's photo printer hot search list, Mijia pocket photo printer-related products topped the list. Perhaps even Xiaomi itself could not have imagined that the portable printer, a product that has been around for several years, would become popular again because of its combination with a small folding phone.
Image source: Taobao
If the portable camera kit can only be used with a small folding phone, the impact on the instant camera industry may not be that great. But the problem is that the Mijia Pocket Photo Printer 1S in the portable camera kit can be used alone. Although the portable camera mode exclusive to MIX Flip cannot be used, other brands of mobile phones can still unlock other ways of playing such as printing photos with the Mijia App, which means that Xiaomi's cost-effective photo paper is enough to affect the entire instant camera industry.
According to the financial report data released by Fujifilm last year, its imaging business drove sales growth of 14.5% and operating profit growth of 39.9% thanks to the strong sales of INSTAX instant imaging cameras, achieving INSTAX's sales target of 150 billion yen in fiscal 2025 one year ahead of schedule.Even though entry-level Polaroid cameras only cost three figures, the actual cost of using them is the photo paper.
Image source: Fujifilm Group
On social platforms, discussions about the high prices of Polaroid photo paper have never stopped. Currently, the price of basic photo paper on Polaroid official channels is generally more than 4 yuan per sheet, and some color and co-branded photo papers are even priced at more than 20 yuan per sheet. For example, Fujifilm's 20 sheets of instax mini white-bordered photo paper are priced at 119 yuan, with a single sheet costing nearly 6 yuan; Polaroid's 8 sheets of color white-framed photo paper are priced at 119 yuan, with a single sheet costing nearly 15 yuan.
Image source: Taobao
Since Polaroid photo paper is a long-term follow-up investment, if users do not want the camera to be left aside gathering dust, they have no choice but to accept high-priced photo paper. They may even be forced to buy from scalpers at a high premium due to photo paper shortages.
In this era of consumption downgrade, on one hand, there is photo paper that costs 2 yuan per sheet, and on the other hand, there is high-priced photo paper that is several or even dozens of times more expensive. I believe that most consumers will make a choice that is beneficial to them.
In fact, Polaroid almost became a thing of the past under the pressure of digital cameras and smartphones. The first instant camera (Polaroid) was born in 1947 and was hailed by Time magazine as one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century.
In the following decades, the Polaroid camera industry has experienced several cycles of boom-fall-and-boom. In particular, the related products were basically unavailable during the 10 years from 2004 to 2014 due to the global popularity of digital cameras and iPhones. It was not until 2018 that Polaroid cameras gradually became popular again due to people's nostalgia for retro style and social needs, and became the new favorite of young people in the digital age. Fujifilm, which ranks first in market share, calls the resurgence of Polaroid cameras "a sudden resurgence of popularity from around the world."
The unexpected popularity of Xiaomi Polaroid has made many people think that "Xiaomi is redefining the industry."In this regard, Xiao Lei believes that Xiaomi Polaroid may dominate the public’s attention in a short period of time, but the portable shooting mode cannot adapt to the characteristics of other mobile phones, which will eventually become the biggest obstacle to its continued expansion.
Image source: Taobao
The reason why Polaroid cameras are so popular among young people is, on the one hand, because of their unique beauty; on the other hand, it is because of the sense of ritual of gently pressing the shutter button, watching the flash light up, and waiting for a few minutes after the photo paper is spit out from the camera body.MIX Flip recreates this sense of ritual very well through the portable camera kit, but if it is used on other mobile phones, this scene will be replaced by ordinary photo printing.
There are so many channels for printing photos that we don’t even need to buy a photo printer ourselves. It only costs a few cents to print a photo on an e-commerce platform. From a cost perspective, this method can be said to be a cheap substitute, and the advantage of Xiaomi Polaroid’s high cost-effective photo paper has been completely lost.
Before solving the adaptation problem of portable cameras, Xiaomi Polaroid may not be able to subvert the original industry manufacturers.More importantly, the creative mode of the MIX Flip+ instant camera set can be replicated in batches. Not only can other mobile phone brands follow suit to create their own "mobile phone + Polaroid" products, but they can also refer to the MIX Flip mode to explore more mobile phone + accessory combinations and use accessories to feed back mobile phone sales.
For example, everyone should have heard of Nothing, the "light factory" in the mobile phone industry. Its sub-brand CMF recently launched a new mobile phone product CMF Phone 1 with accessories as a gimmick. Xiao Lei just got the phone yesterday and tried it. This phone can replace the back panel by itself, and can also connect to accessories such as brackets, lanyards, and card holders. Although the CMF Phone 1, priced at 1,396 yuan, has a rather mediocre and even somewhat backward configuration, the sales of this phone exceeded 100,000 units within three hours of its launch. It can be seen that a considerable number of consumers still attach great importance to the playability of accessories.
Image source: Lei Technology Filming
Similarly, the MIX Flip+ portable camera set also hit the pain points of a specific group, which brought the concept of portable printer back to the forefront. Since MIX Flip has just been released, Xiao Lei cannot judge how much the portable camera set has helped MIX Flip, but what can be confirmed is that the portable camera set has successfully introduced MIX Flip to a group that originally did not pay attention to foldable screen phones. Xiaomi has made a lot of money from this wave of publicity.
It is foreseeable that more mobile phone manufacturers will refer to the MIX Flip model in the future and closely connect accessories with mobile phones through customized functions, thereby achieving accessories-driven mobile phone sales.In fact, this is also the ecological interconnection that we are familiar with. On a certain level, PCs, smart homes, and cars can all be regarded as mobile phone accessories. They are interconnected and can provide users with more practical and interesting functions.
It is worth mentioning that the MIX Flip portable camera set is currently out of stock. Just now, the last device in the Xiaomi store near Xiao Lei's home was also sold out. Friends who want to try it out don't need to worry, and there is no need to pay more to buy it from other channels. The shortage is mainly due to Xiaomi's failure to anticipate the popularity of the product, so it is not well prepared. Be patient and wait for a while, and I believe that there will be sufficient supply of the original price to replenish the shelves.
In the Internet era, the pace of hot spots changes too fast. Xiaomi's "Instant Camera" trend may blow over at any time, but the greatest significance of this event is to inspire other mobile phone manufacturers to adopt the "mobile phone + accessories" model. The highly homogenized mobile phone market needs unique differences, which is also the part that users can perceive most easily.
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