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In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen

22 Apr 2026 · 41m · 22 chapters

Episode artwork

Xiaomi CFO: From Smartphones to EVs, Speed to Market and AI

In short

Xiaomi CFO Alain Lam discusses Xiaomi’s evolution from building smartphone OS (2010) to smartphones, IoT “human x car x home” ecosystem, and entry into EVs (car launched 2024), plus robotics/humanoids and AI strategy.

Key claims

speed comes from China’s mature supply chain and localized/customized components; EVs should be “smart electric vehicles” integrated with Xiaomi phones/IoT; Xiaomi will focus humanoid robots on manufacturing efficiency (not 2C); AI is central across coding, sales prediction, manufacturing defect detection, and material/formula selection; Xiaomi’s large language model is open-sourced and cheaper than Claude.

Notable examples

Xiaomi One launched 2011 at 1999 RMB; Xiaomi 17 “back panel” design; smart locks that trigger AC; EV Nürburgring quick lap record; “50,000 cars in 30 minutes”; robots working consecutively for three hours with low error; AI x-ray defect diagnosis; own LLM ranked highly on openrouter.com.

Guests

Alain Lam, CFO of Xiaomi; Nicolai Tangen, CEO of the Norwegian “So-and-Well Fund” (host).

Written by AI. May contain mistakes.

Chapters

0:46

The Origins of Xiaomi

Alain Lam shares the early beginnings and philosophy of Xiaomi.

“So first of all, Xiaomi is still a very young company.”
2:16

Rapid Product Development

Discussion on Xiaomi's quick product development and supply chain advantages.

“building the operating system for smartphones.”
4:00

Smart Solutions for Users

Exploring Xiaomi's smart home solutions and user-centric technology.

“How much easier is it for you as a firm to be fast in product development when you can source everything locally?”
5:45

Entering the EV Market

Alain Lam discusses Xiaomi's venture into the electric vehicle industry.

“It is important because I think in this world, a lot of our users like intelligent solutions.”
7:40

Building an EV from Scratch

Insights on the challenges and strategies in developing their first car.

“And then we launched our first car in 2024.”
11:48

Philosophy Behind Xiaomi's Brand Loyalty

Discussion on Xiaomi's customer engagement and brand philosophy.

“and they know that we're going to make the best products for them.”
14:01

EV and Smartphone Parallels

Explore how the EV industry mirrors smartphone technology in software and hardware integration.

“and a lot of it is, you know, in smartphone, we stack up a lot of chipsets into a very small form factor.”
15:02

Europe's EV Market Position

Discuss the competitive landscape of the EV market and Europe's current position relative to China.

“How far behind is Europe when it comes to EVs now?”
16:10

Future of EV Adoption

Examine the factors influencing the future growth and adoption of electric vehicles globally.

“right i think that that that's one thing that you know the users right now really want especially given the Xiaomi advantage is how do I link it with all of our ecosystem products?”
18:40

Robotics and AI Integration

Learn about Xiaomi's robotics initiatives and the role of AI in enhancing manufacturing.

“Look, I think, you know, obviously there's a lot of investments that need to go in, especially for many of the legacy brands, because they need to retool the whole systems to get an EV done.”
Show all 22 chapters
21:58

Humanoid Robots Development

Discover the focus on humanoid robots at Xiaomi and their manufacturing applications.

“but the text and the voice are quite well developed.”
23:30

AI Implementation in Business

Understand how Xiaomi employs AI across its various departments and operations.

“to be able to do you know to improve our manufacturing efficiency first and maybe to recreate our entire manufacturing processes.”
26:36

Xiaomi's Language Model Launch

Explore the details of Xiaomi's recently launched language model and its advantages.

“So we launched our own large language model two weeks ago, and it has performed pretty well.”
28:00

Xiaomi's Open Source AI Model Strategy

Learn how Xiaomi is leveraging an open-source model to enhance AI development.

“publicly about that uh number one number two is if you think about the the model development right now, I think there's still a long way to go.”
28:48

Integrating AI into Everyday Devices

Discover Xiaomi's vision for AI integration across smartphones and appliances.

“But I think that our open source model is obviously because we want to invite other you know, other developers to jointly develop this model with us to help our ecosystem become smarter, right?”
30:08

The Visionary Leadership of Lei Jun

Explore the leadership style of Lei Jun and his dedication to product excellence.

“And then how to interconnect these things to make users' lives more efficient, much better.”
31:28

Work Ethic and Corporate Culture at Xiaomi

Understand how hard work and smart strategies shape Xiaomi's culture.

“Lee himself is an entrepreneur, zero entrepreneur, but he's also a product person.”
33:42

The Key to Speed in Business Operations

Learn what drives speed and innovation in Xiaomi's operations.

“I mean, obviously we are, we have a very, very complicated business, right?”
35:54

Xiaomi's Future Plans in Europe

Get insights into Xiaomi's expansion strategy in the European market.

“Look, we are already quite strong in Europe in terms of consumer electronics.”
36:52

Personal Relaxation and Work-Life Balance

Hear how the speaker balances work and personal life through reading and exercise.

“And that's developed by our European team.”
39:20

Advice for the Next Generation

Understand the importance of learning and adapting in a fast-evolving world.

“And every conversation, you try to get a different perspective of, you know, what's important to them.”
40:49

Finding Solutions to Problems

Explore the insight that most problems already have solutions to be found.

“So there is something that you can learn.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00Hi everybody and welcome to In Good Company. I'm Nicolai Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian So-and-Well Fund and today I'm in particularly good company with the CFO of Xiaomi, Alain Lam. Hello Nicolai, thanks for having me.

0:22now uh ala um seomi is just a an incredible company with phones cars humanoids um you know we are the lucky owner of more than one percent of the company so um just tell us uh what do you do and how did it all happen? Well, thanks, Nicola. Thanks for the question. And good to be here. So first of all, Xiaomi is still a very young company. We just turned 16. We were founded on April 6, 2010. And since then, we have done a lot, as you mentioned. But ultimately, I think we think of ourselves as a global technology company. Obviously, we have smartphones. We have a lot of smart devices. plus recently we have smart electric vehicles and we are into manufacturing.

1:15But underlying all of these is our technology, whether it is our operating system, our semiconductors, our AI. I think those are the stuff that we built underneath all of our ecosystem, right? I think we built a pretty comprehensive, what we call a human times car times home ecosystem, ranging from all your personal devices to all your home devices and now with your mobility solutions. So that's where we are. But, you know, we've achieved quite a bit, you know, over the last 15 years. You know, obviously, last year we have over 450 billion RMB in terms of sales. And, you know, and we have achieved, you know, pretty good profitability.

2:02It's just such an incredible story. So I'm not quite sure even where to start. but why don't we just go through it chronologically. The first product you had, you know, just how did you, just how did it start? We actually started off building the operating system for smartphones. And that was in 2010 when we founded the company. We want to do a, you know, operating system on top of the Android ecosystem and then try to offer it to smartphones. But eventually, we decided to get into the smartphone ourselves. And our first smartphone, which we called Xiaomi One, we sold it at 1999 RMB in China. And that became a huge success because, as you remember, back in the days, there were a lot of products out there that were low quality but high prices.

2:54How long time did it take you to develop the telephone? So we launched our first smartphone in 2011, so one year after we found it. How is it possible to have such a short cycle time? Yeah, because at that time, I think there is a lot of, you know, the supply chain is obviously quite advanced in China. But the problem in the market at that time was there was a lot of expensive products with very low quality, right? And the philosophy for the company is that can we do a smartphone that is much better quality and we can offer to users at much more affordable prices? And that's something that you see permeated in the history of our products, right?

3:35We try to offer very high-quality solutions to our users at affordable prices. How do you think about your supply chain? How much of that is Chinese-sourced and how much is sourced outside? Well, I mean, at the beginning, I think there's still a lot of reliance on foreign technologies. But over the last 15 years, for a smartphone, frankly, most of the content now is localized. You can find local solutions for that in most of our components. How much easier is it for you as a firm to be fast in product development when you can source everything locally? It is important because the local, you know, frankly speaking, if you think about the foreign products, a lot of them are more standardized solutions off the shelf.

4:20whereas the local partners are willing to work with you developing products that are more customized to what we want. And as a result, it's not just faster, but it's also our ability to offer much more customized solutions that fits better into our smartphone, that fits better into what we want. And as a result, we go to market. We are able to offer products to our customers and offer something that they really want. So you are now at Model 17. You've aligned with the Apple kind of numbers. You had a setback in 16. What happened then? Well, I think there was such a big leap between 15 and 17 that we think that it's beyond one generation in terms of improvement from our Xiaomi 17 to our Xiaomi 15.

5:15And hence, we name it Xiaomi 17. And the innovation comes when you look at a smartphone. I don't have one with me right now, unfortunately. But it offered a back panel. So instead of having a front panel like most smartphones do, we actually offer the back panel as well. So you can use both sides effectively. And that's something that has proven to be very groundbreaking and a lot of our users like it. How important has the Internet of Things or your connectivity with home appliances been? It is important because I think in this world, a lot of our users like intelligent solutions. So, think about air conditioners, think about washing machines, think about refrigerators.

6:04The technology has existed for 30-50 years, but that hasn't changed for a long time. So what we offer to our users is smart solutions. Now you can upgrade your software over the air in your devices, as opposed to buying new machines. And a lot of our users value that. Plus the fact is, can you make your whole lifestyle, whole ecosystem much smarter by connecting everything together so that they can do things for you? not just using your smartphone as a remote control, but smart intelligence solutions that they understand who you are, they understand your behavior, and they can try to offer customized solutions for you every day.

6:51What other kind of things that you can offer clients? For example, a smart lock, right? Many people now install, instead of a traditional lock, a smart lock, right? Not just you can look at who's outside of your door, who's delivering stuff to you, you can offer a specialized password for people to enter your apartment so that you don't leak your, you know, secrecy. But also if you interconnect it with other devices at home, for example, when you open your smart lock, your AC will automatically be switched on, right? Then you don't have to do anything extra, right? And those are the smart solutions that we like to think that our users need.

7:31And, you know, and obviously that become very popular feature among our users. And then you decided to make a car. Correct. We decided to get into the car industry in 2021. And then we launched our first car in 2024. How is that possible? So a little bit over less than three years, we launched our first car, we designed it, and then we built a factory as well. So China Speed. Tell me about China Speed. So look, at the beginning, the car industry to us is not that foreign. Xiaomi as a company has already invested in some of the EB manufacturers in China before. So we have an experience of seeing them develop, helping them develop over time.

8:23But then we decided to do it ourselves. And as you know, we've done a lot of due diligence in the industry. the moment we decided to get into this industry. And I think the ultimate solution is, our ultimate conclusion, I should say, is that, you know, if you believe that a car, a EV, right, is going to be another piece of consumer electronics. And that's something that we have a lot of experience in, whether it is managing the software, hardware integration, whether it is managing the supply chain. I think those are the stuff that, you know, we have experience working with so many consumer electronics products before.

9:01I mean, obviously, car is a little bit of a different animal because you need to consider about safety, you know, but, you know, again, I think the supply chain in China has been relatively well developed on the EV industry. So as we go into that, I think what we said was, look, can we spend 10 times more investments to build a first car? I think that's also a very important philosophy as well, is instead of going into all this different directions, making multiple cars, we decided to spend all of our efforts on one single car. And it's a pretty fast car, right? Because now you set the record for the quickest round on Nürburgring last year.

9:44Yeah, look, I think as we look into this car industry, in the EV industry as well, we think that there are certain things that are core to the EV technology that we want to own and develop ourselves, right? The rest, we can have our suppliers work with us on that. But things like the electric motors is something that we've spent real efforts on. Things like the, how do you pack the battery? Things like smart driving, assisted driving, et cetera. Those are the stuff that we spend, you know, a real time on developing our proprietary technology. The rest of it, I think we can rely on other people to supply us with this, with the industry solutions.

10:23How many people do you have in R &D? At the beginning, probably around 3 ,000 people to develop the first car, which is, as you know, in this industry, probably 10 times more than other peers in terms of developing the first car because our chairman has the philosophy that we want to spend a lot of efforts initially to catch up with our peers. Now, you sold 50 ,000 cars in 30 minutes. Yeah. Yeah, because look, I think obviously we are very new entrant to the EV business. But obviously at the same time, we already have a very established brand in China. We have a lot of loyal users of our products.

11:09We have over 180 million people in China that are using our smartphones every day. And at the beginning, when we decided to develop a car, to develop an EV, a lot of our users saying that, you know, if Xiaomi wants to make a car, we'll buy it, right? So, you know, 20 plus percent of our initial buyers haven't even test driven the car, haven't even, you know, seen the car in real life, right? They just see us launching the car and they put an order in. So that's a testament to the loyal user base that we've built up, that a loyal to brand, and they know that we're going to make the best products for them.

11:51How do you get people to love you? Well, I think it goes back to our philosophy, right? If you look at our mission, we want to build amazing products with honest prices to let everyone in the world enjoy a better life for innovative technology. That's a long sentence, but we want to build amazing products. We want to offer these products at what we call honest prices to our users. And we want to do a global business, right? And we want to be innovative. So I think all these things are, all these features are what users really value these days. And over time, we've also made the coolest products.

12:32We make a lot of friends with our users. We stay engaged with our users, listen to the feedback, and try to change our product based on these feedbacks. So those are the stuff that we've built a very good report with our users over time. And that's how they are loyal to our brand. They know that whenever they walk into our store, whenever they buy one of Xiaomi products, they are getting the best pricing possible. What are the similarities between making a phone and a car? Some similarities, a lot of differences. Obviously, if you look at the phone industry, before 2024, we did not have a first factory, smartphone factory.

13:15So before that, we were all using, you know, outsourcing it to the Foxconn of the world, the BYD of the world, and other suppliers to make the phones for us. So we are more responsible for the design, for some of the basic technology, for some of the technology and also for, you know, the branding and the marketing of the products. For the car business, you know, we also undertook the task of building an entire new factory in Beijing, right? And so that is a new experience for us. That's our first real large scale factory that built our own car. So that's the difference. I think that's the one key difference between how we entered into the car business versus how we entered the smartphone business.

14:00But there's a lot of similarities because increasingly the software drives the hardware in the EV, just like they're in the smartphone. and a lot of it is, you know, in smartphone, we stack up a lot of chipsets into a very small form factor. In the car, it's similar. We have to stack up a lot of components and, you know, other things into a form factor. But increasingly more important, especially in the EV world, the software becomes very important. How do you manage battery power? How do you manage the software to drive the car in a safe manner? I think those are very important similarities with the smartphone business.

14:39Obviously, managing the supply chain is also very important. We have a lot of suppliers that are the same between the smartphone business as well as the EB business. And that's why there's a lot of cross-collaborations. I think people trust the engineers of Xiaomi that we can build something that is world-class and that is very popular with the users. How far behind is Europe when it comes to EVs now? Look, we still look up to a lot of the OEMs, the traditional OEMs. We still think that there's a lot of things to learn from them. The way that they build the brand, the way that they build the drivetrain, the way that they give people a real good driving experience.

15:25Those are the stuff that we still look up to a lot of the European OEMs. What we think that they are lacking, number one, I think the smartness of the car. I think they are trying to implement a lot of the smart features into the car right now. But I think in that sense, they are probably behind what we are seeing in China right now. And then the second is kind of the whole, you know, NEV, the new energy vehicle development. right i think that they were a lot of the focus were on electric at that time but really i think when we look at uh our ev we call it a smart electric vehicles right uh and i think that some oems may look at electric to you know uh to focus on electric but let's focus on smart right i think that that that's one thing that you know the users right now really want especially given the Xiaomi advantage is how do I link it with all of our ecosystem products?

16:26How do it work better with my smartphones? How do you work better with my IoT devices? You know, things like that, that I can create not just a EV, but also a, you know, smart life ecosystem beyond the EV. And how long time do you think it would take the Western brands to catch up on that particular element? No, I think a lot of people are learning, right? I think a lot of people are studying how the Chinese need development has become so advanced. We have obviously received quite a lot of European OEMs who've come to visit us, who come to, you know, want to have experience sharing with us, not just we sharing with them, but they also share with us.

17:10You know, it depends on how serious they are. And I think you've already seen a couple of the European collaboration with the Chinese players as well. So I think that that's going to be helpful in driving the industry forward. I think it was the CEO of Ford who used your Su7 for a little while. What did he say about it? He said he couldn't get rid of it after six months of driving it. Because he loved it too much. Apparently. I haven't spoken with him in person, but based on what he's been saying in public, he loves our car. How is the EV market going to develop going forward? Look, I think the EV penetrations will continue to go, you know, to be higher.

18:05In China, new car sales is already 50%, 60 % new energy vehicle. So that's very high already. But if you look at a lot of the global markets, the new EV market is still quite low in terms of penetration. So I think that as the infrastructure continues to develop, as people appreciate the smartness, the drivability of these new electric vehicles, I think the penetration will go up. So when you see European and American producers actually pulling back their EV efforts, what do you think about that? Look, I think, you know, obviously there's a lot of investments that need to go in, especially for many of the legacy brands, because they need to retool the whole systems to get an EV done.

19:01so a lot of them are probably not pushing that agenda forward. But honestly speaking, we don't think that they're – we think that the NGV is going to continue to penetrate whether the Chinese players are coming in or whether the Europeans and the American players are developing it themselves or also the Japanese and the Koreans. So I actually think that the trend will be there longer term. There's obviously maybe hiccups along the way, but the whole industry, I think, will move forward in this direction. As sometimes there's a major breakthrough in terms of smartness of the vehicles and also the infrastructure.

19:46I think there are a lot of places whereby the infrastructure is probably not as well developed in the other markets for the EV market to take off.

19:59Let's move on to robotics and humanoids. What are you doing there? Have you seen your latest models and it's pretty mind-boggling? We've been doing robotics for five, six years now. That's an investment that we've started making back in 2019, 2020. point. But then I think we're beginning to see the inflection point in this market.

20:30Combinations of the hardware getting better, as well as the software getting better, i.e. AI, that is driving the brain of the robots. The way that we are thinking, Xiaomi internally is thinking about is we are making these humanoid robots to enhance our own manufacturing capability and efficiency. We haven't launched any 2C robots. So all the robots that we are developing, all the humanoid robots we are developing right now are used in our own manufacturing scenario. I think the video already showed that there were two robots that are working consecutively for three hours with a very low margin of error.

21:13But still, I think that's a long way to go. That's a long way to go because, as you know, and I'm sure that we'll move to AI at some point in this conversation, the AI right now is mostly focusing on learning from the text data, from the voice data that we have accumulated for a long, long time. but then the physical data are still quite a way behind in terms of the collection and the interpretation. So I do think that when you develop the large language model for physical AI, right now what we're still lacking is a lot of data that don't exist. So you have to stimulate it, you have to find out the use cases and find the corner cases, et cetera, et cetera.

21:59but the text and the voice are quite well developed. Could you tell us about the improvement in the grip functionality in your latest model? Yeah, look, I think if you look at the video that it shows the hand is much smaller than the other versions. The hand is very similar to a human hand size now, right? And also the degree of freedom that it offers, right? I mean, I think one of the biggest challenges with the hand is how many degrees of freedoms do you have in the hand. And then the second problem that we're trying to solve is the cooling. It's like a smartphone. It's like when you use the machines for too long, it gets heated.

22:44And once it gets heated, the consumer electronics rule will say that the performance will degrade. So what we're trying to do also is introduce a cooling system that you can do some heat management of the hand as well so that it doesn't get overheated while you are doing the work repetitively. When do you think you'll have this for consumers? um that's not the focus of xiaomi right now to be honest uh because uh we actually think that uh there is a big space uh for us to because ultimately we do hardware right we do a lot of hardwares um and uh there's a lot of manufacturing involved right so we want these uh humanoid robots to be able to do you know to improve our manufacturing efficiency first and maybe to recreate our entire manufacturing processes.

23:37It could be. But that's already a huge market. So right now, we're not thinking about doing any 2C robot at this point in time. Who do you think will win this race? It's hard to say, but it suffice to say that, you know, if you look at this market right now, in terms of innovation, in terms of entrepreneurship, in terms of technology leadership, there are two big superpowers in the world, right? The US and China. So, you know, the winner will come from one of these two places, but I don't know where yet. Yeah. What's next? Well, I think, I mean, we talk a lot about, you know, what we've been doing.

24:26I think that the next thing for us is, you know, continue to develop our AI capabilities. I think that AI is going to be very important for the next wave of innovations. And it will impact all of our businesses. How do you use it today in the company? Well, I mean, I think the simple things are coding, right? So a lot of our software engineers now use white coding, number one. Second one is can we improve our sales efficiency? Can we predict sales better? i.e. do I even need to hire an experienced sales store manager or I can use AI to predict what kind of sales should each store generate every day marketing materials we can use AI to generate the first few drafts and very importantly even in the manufacturing process we've been using AI a lot so when we talk about our car we have a big bigger press right that does the rear floor for the car um but in terms of the material we use for that for that for that rear floor we generated over we stimulated over a hundred plus formulas and use ai to predict the performance of each of these formulas and ultimately we picked two uh to be the material for that rear forward that we do for the gigapress that we do right in terms of like you know and in In terms of each piece that we manufactured, they went through an x-ray room when they take a lot of pictures and they use AIs to look into that, to see whether they are defects in the manufacturing process, right?

26:12So you don't use humans to do it anymore. You just use AI to take pictures very quickly. They can diagnose whether this piece is good or not. And then you can use AI in terms of material generations and a lot of those things. So we're using AI in a lot of different areas. But then there are more to do, I think. There are more to do going forward. You've also developed your own language model. Yes, we just launched it two weeks ago. So we launched our own large language model two weeks ago, and it has performed pretty well. I mean, if you look at public scoring systems like openrouter.com, you can see that we have been ranked very highly on that table.

26:57So we're very glad that we have a large language model that people like and people use. And at much lower costs than the likes of Claude. Well, I mean, these calls are never publicly disclosed information. So I don't quite know the cause of it. But our price that we offered are lower than Cork, but much higher than the other models from China that are being offered right now. What are the cost advantages you have when it comes to the utilization of these models, giving lower energy costs, simpler model structures and so on? um we we did try to innovate a bit on the uh on the infrastructure of the model so it's obviously we have the benefit of seeing how other people do it before and then we try to optimize our path so so in terms of infrastructure we have done some innovations although we didn't talk too much publicly about that uh number one number two is if you think about the the model development right now, I think there's still a long way to go.

28:12The good thing for Xiaomi in a way is I already have a big ecosystem that we can use to test. We can collect data from those user behavior and we can refine our model. Last thing is obviously, as you know, that we put it as an open source model. So we're also trying to invite the best mind globally to help improve that model as a result. What is it going to mean that many of the Chinese models are open source? Well, I think that's also a different approach, right? I think different model companies will have different approach in terms of how they want to do an open source or closed source. But I think that our open source model is obviously because we want to invite other you know, other developers to jointly develop this model with us to help our ecosystem become smarter, right?

29:09And then to raise the, you know, experience ceiling of these models and also help us attract, you know, good talent to help us improve the model as well, right? Because ultimately, I think if you look at whether it's our car, whether it's our smartphone, you know, we want to invite other people to join us together so that we can help improve the ecosystem together as well. So let's say five, ten years from now, when you have integrated all your products with the latest AI models and so on, what's the vision of the world? What is it going to look like? As we think about how AI is going to change the world and how do we fit into our own ecosystem, We think about more in the physical AI world.

30:04How do we get AI into our phone? How do we get AI into our smart appliances? How do we get AI into our car? And then how to interconnect these things to make users' lives more efficient, much better. I think that's kind of how we see this. right? I mean, obviously other people are using AI to serve the coding community. Other people are trying to use AI to make, you know, very useful chat box for the users so that they can, you know, they can use their chat box to help them, you know, manage their life better. But for us, for Xiaomi, because we have over, you know, a billion connected devices globally, we have over 800 million mobile smartphone users globally.

30:55How do we interconnect these devices so that we'll enhance people's productivity in the physical AI world? I think that's something that we are looking at.

31:11I have to ask you a question about the founder, Lei Yun, who is kind of considered a mix of Bill Gates Steve Jobs and Elon Musk.

31:24How is it to work with him? Well, Mr. Lee himself is an entrepreneur, zero entrepreneur, but he's also a product person. I think if you look at when we get into the car industry, we decided that he should be the CEO of the car business in order to take it forward. and he will, you know, I think you've seen other interviews of him as well, that he has personally driven 150 different models of car, right, himself, and take detailed notes so that he understands what's on offer in the market and how can he improve on it. I mean, I can assure that you can find very few CEOs that have this real dedication is to start off with this car business, right?

32:20He make us, like all the management team, like I personally driven 3 ,000 kilometers before the first car was launched in our own car, just to, again, you know, his philosophy is that you have to understand the product. You have to love your product before you, you know, before you are in this business, right? He make us all take professional racing car, you know, licenses in order to know how to drive properly. So obviously he's a visionary. He defined the company's culture, but he also tried to help us, right? Enhance our knowledge, not just on the business, but also on the products that we offer.

33:03What are the other ways he influences the corporate culture of the company? Well, I think, look, I mean, he's obviously a very hardworking guy, right? You know, he worked, I mean, people know in China that he works very, very hard. And that obviously, you know, inspired all of us to follow suit, right? He is a visionary. I mean, I think he'll consider it a visionary. He's also a very good investor in China. You know, so I think those are the stuff that he defined the corporate culture. What does it mean to work hard in your book? Look, work hard and work smart, right? I mean, obviously we are, we have a very, very complicated business, right?

33:48It is not, you know, we are in smartphones, we are in IOTs, we are in car, we have AI, we have operating system, and we are running our business in over 100 plus countries. We are also in the manufacturing industry, et cetera. So there's a lot of things to manage on a day-to-day basis. So by that already, you know, you can spend a lot of time doing daily jobs. But at the same time, I think, you know, what we need to do is work smart, i.e. what are the priorities, what are the three important things we want to achieve this quarter, this month, as well as this year. And we focus on those three things that matters, as opposed to getting immersed into a lot of small tasks that may not have much of an impact.

34:30So for the management suite, we are more focusing on what's the most important things and how do we tackle that on a quarterly basis, on a yearly basis, on a monthly basis, and on a daily basis. You mentioned Chinese speed in the beginning. What's the key to gaining speed? Well, look, I think number one is having the right infrastructure. If you look at the manufacturing supply chain in smartphones, in appliances, also in the EV industry, it's very well developed in China already. I think that helps any consumer electronics business kickstart very quickly. Number one. Number two is the amount of innovation and entrepreneurship that is happening here.

35:25People are willing to spend the commitment on innovating stuff as opposed to just following stuff. And I think the third is really, as you know, people in China do spend a lot of time working. and at the same time probably enjoying life at the same time, but they tend to spend more hours. If you spend more hours, I think that the investment will pay off at some point. What are your plans for Europe? Look, we are already quite strong in Europe in terms of consumer electronics. Last year, we ranked number three in Europe in terms of smartphone sales. So we're up there with Apple and Samsung.

36:12Next year, in the second half of next year, we're planning to export our cars into Europe. So that's going to be a new and big joint venture for us. A new venture for us, not joint venture. And so that's going to be a new thing that will happen. And we are already investing a lot in Europe right now. As you can see, we have a car racing on Ubering. We also set up an EV research center in Munich last year with 75 to 100 engineers over there already developing some of the coolest products. We've showcased in Barcelona this March a Vision Gran Turismo product, which is a concept car that we have.

37:05And that's developed by our European team. Great fun. How do you personally relax? Well, look, I did a lot of, you know, many people say working is relaxing. So I do work quite a lot. But at the same time, you have to find the right time. I spend a lot of time reading as well. I spend a lot of time doing exercise. What do you read? All kinds of books. Research reports. I do like reading research reports on other companies. I do like reading business books. There are obviously a lot of successful examples in many of the industries that we're in, whether it is Apple, whether it's Tesla. I read a lot of those books.

37:48But at the same time, I try to read a lot of books that talk about business failures. Why do some companies fail? And it's something that you always can learn, right? I think that there's one phase that I really like is history always repeats itself, right? And so as you read more about these stories, business stories, you know how people can be successful and you need to find your own path to success. But at the same time, you want to avoid the pitfalls that many companies are facing. Working is relaxing. What does that mean? Look, I mean, you do need to enjoy your work, I think. it's very important that you need to enjoy what you're doing.

38:29You need to enjoy your colleagues, working with your colleagues. You need to enjoy working with other partners. You need to enjoy, you know, understanding what your users need. So those are, I mean, those in itself can be, you know, quite enjoyable experience as well as relaxing experience. But at the same time, I do, you know, I do spend quite a bit of time running outside. So I'm going to do a half marathon in Beijing this weekend. So that's something that I would do. And I think that those are the times that you can think about, you know, what happened next, some of the long term plans. But I do also enjoy, you know, meeting up with partners, customers, friends over a nice meal, having a nice glass of wine.

39:15And that's something that you can learn from them as well. I mean, I do enjoy talking to a lot of, you know, industry people, people from other industry as well. And every conversation, you try to get a different perspective of, you know, what's important to them. And you can learn from them about their experience also. What is your advice to young people? Look, I think the world is evolving very, very fast. I do think that having the interest to learn about the latest developments is very important. We all talk about AI. How is AI going to change the job market in the future? How is AI going to change how people are doing things in the future?

40:01I think those are important. And I think that the young people do need to catch up on the latest trends because if they don't catch up, then they may face job security issues in the future. They may not be able to understand what the next stage of development is going to be. So I do think that young people do need to spend time understanding the latest trends. But at the same time, I think, you know, as I mentioned previously, I do like to read about history. I do like to read about what other businesses, success or failure, because you can always learn something from history. Right. Because there's going to be, you know, history always, as I mentioned before, history always repeat itself.

40:49So there is something that you can learn. And, you know, I think one of our chairman saying many years ago, which resonated a lot with me was 99 % of the problems. There was a lot. There's already a solution out there. You just need to find it. And maybe with AI, you can find it faster. Well, you for sure have found the solution to very many problems. And big thanks for all your hard work. We are so happy to be a shareholder in your group. And good luck with everything going forward. Thank you, Nick. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thank you.

From the publisher

In this episode of In Good Company, Nicolai Tangen speaks with Alain Lam, CFO of Xiaomi, about the company’s journey from a smartphone startup to a global technology leader spanning smart devices, electric vehicles, and AI.

Lam shares how Xiaomi’s focus on high-quality products at “honest prices” and its tightly integrated ecosystem have driven rapid growth and innovation. He explains the company’s move into electric vehicles—designing and launching its first car in under three years—and why Xiaomi sees EVs as the next generation of consumer electronics.

The conversation also looks ahead to AI-powered manufacturing, humanoid robotics, and a future where phones, homes, and cars are seamlessly connected. Along the way, Lam offers insights on leadership, company culture, and building lasting customer loyalty.

In Good Company is hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. New full episodes every Wednesday, and don't miss our Highlight episodes every Friday. 

 

The production team for this episode includes Isabelle Karlsson and PLAN-B's Niklas Figenschau Johansen, Sebastian Langvik-Hansen and Pål Huuse. Background research was conducted by Oscar Hjelde.

 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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