The favorable sports policy, the shaping of city image, the influx of commercial capital, the huge population base, and the national fitness craze — — In recent years, the marathon industry in China has been on the "expressway" in running all the way, and in the past 2018, it has averaged 4.3 races per day.

　　With the upgrading of national fitness consumption, ten thousand people get together in marathon events, which also reflects the huge potential market for sports development in China. However, as the marathon continues to heat up, all kinds of chaos can not be ignored.

　　The number of events continues to hit record highs.

　　On March 11th, 2018 China Marathon Annual Report released by China Athletics Association at the annual press conference of 2018 China Athletics Association showed that the scale of China Marathon events continued to increase, and the industry-driven effect appeared, further enlarging its influence.

　　By the end of 2018, there were 1,581 marathons and related sports events (road races with more than 800 people and cross-country races with more than 300 people) held in China, an increase of 479 games compared with 1,102 games in 2017, with an increase of 43.46%. The cumulative number of participants was 5.83 million, an increase of 850,000 or 17.07% compared with the total participation scale of 4.98 million in 2017.

　　With the marathon events in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou "one ticket is hard to find", the event resources are also shifting to small and medium-sized cities. The data shows that in 2015, only 79 cities in China held marathon events, which increased to 133 cities in 2016 and 234 in 2017. In 2018, 285 prefecture-level cities held marathon events, covering more than 85% of the prefecture-level cities in China.

　　The data also shows that Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong provinces are far ahead in the number of marathon events, and the number of marathon events held in Beijing, Shanghai and Shandong has also exceeded 60. Some insiders believe that the regional distribution of the events is consistent with the pattern of local economic strength, indicating that the holding of marathon events depends on a certain economic foundation and consumer demand.

　　The number of events is constantly reaching new heights, and the consumer groups of marathons are growing. The "blowout" growth of the running population has shown a good market prospect for the marathon industry. Focusing on marathon events, radiation drives the integration and development of catering, tourism, transportation, retail and other related industries, and perfecting the whole industrial chain is the next key breakthrough. The key words are "specialization" and "refinement".

　　According to the report, in 2018, the total annual consumption of China Marathon reached 17.8 billion yuan, the total annual consumption driven by events reached 28.8 billion yuan, and the total annual industrial output reached 74.6 billion yuan, an increase of 7% compared with last year. In particular, the fast-moving consumer goods related to running, such as the development of various running equipment and smart wearable products, have become the "big cake" that major sports brands compete for in marathon events.

　　"2018 is an important year for China Marathon to accelerate reform and development and seek quantitative change to qualitative change." Yu Hongchen, director of the Athletics Management Center of the State Sports General Administration and vice chairman and secretary general of the China Athletics Association, said at the press conference, "Marathon has played an important role in promoting, upgrading and promoting national fitness, urban tourism consumption, economic growth, city visibility and reputation in all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities."

　　The industrial chain that ran out

　　For most runners, running has a natural advantage — — The participation threshold is low, simple and easy to operate. As long as you have a pair of running shoes and a sportswear, you can easily get on the road. In China, marathon is becoming a "super online celebrity"-like sport, and more and more people are keen on "horse racing". Running on social media such as WeChat and Weibo has increasingly become synonymous with pursuing health and improving the quality of life.

　　In 2011, the domestic GDP per capita exceeded 5,000 US dollars, which was regarded as the first year of "marathon fever" in China. That year, China Athletics Association participated in 22 marathon and related road running events. As a result, the development momentum of China Marathon began to appear. By the beginning of 2015, the China Athletics Association announced that it would completely cancel the examination and approval procedures for marathon events and simplify the access procedures, and the number of events immediately "blew out".

　　The scale of the event has come up, and the number and quality of runners have also improved. Taking the Beijing Marathon in 2018 as an example, the number of applicants exceeded 110,000 for the first time, and 111,793 people competed for 30,000 all-Malaysian places, making the winning rate a record low.

　　The popularity of marathon is not only reflected in the number of participants, but also in the growing market of running-related products. Advertising, clothing, smart wear, real estate, finance, medical care, etc. are all related to marathon. In addition to enlarging the city’s business cards and enhancing the popularity of corporate sponsors, it also enhanced the sales of sports equipment, thus driving the actual benefits of the entire road running industry chain.

　　Take Xiamen, which has the reputation of the most beautiful marathon track, as an example: in 2018, "Xiamen Horse" brought Xiamen 116 million yuan in direct economic benefits, 175 million yuan in driving economic benefits and 291 million yuan in comprehensive economic benefits. On the day of the competition, more than 20,000 tourists visited the competition. Only foreign and foreign athletes who came to participate in the competition contributed about 27 million yuan to Xiamen’s accommodation and catering.

　　Like all sports industries, marathon industry has a large development space and a long industrial chain extension, which has a wide impact on local tourism, urban impression, urban planning and transformation, and other industries in the city. The correlation of industries provides more possibilities for industrial development space.

　　Among the top ten most commercially valuable urban marathon events in 2018, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are among them, followed by second-tier and quasi-second-tier cities such as Xiamen, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Zhengzhou, Xi ‘an, Lanzhou and Chongqing, and some county-level areas such as Dawu County, Xiaogan, Hubei, and Sihong County, Suqian, Jiangsu, have also joined the ranks of holding marathon events.

　　According to the development goal of China Athletics Association in 2020, there will be more than 1,900 marathons in China, with 10 million participants, and the scale of marathon sports industry will exceed 120 billion yuan. The marathon in the 100 billion economic market is waiting for more individuals or enterprises to dig gold.

　　Under the "blowout", there are also many problems

　　The threshold for running a marathon seems to be very low, but it is precisely a project that tests the ability of organizing and coordinating events. Every marathon is a test of a city’s traffic operation, medical first aid, and citizen tolerance. For example, the details such as track setting, guide board setting and mobile toilets are not well considered, and in the end, it will not enhance the reputation of the city, but will be counterproductive.

　　It is particularly noteworthy that there are a large number of people participating in the marathon, and ensuring the personal safety of the participants is the top priority for the continuous success of the marathon. Moreover, due to the large number of participants in this kind of sports event, there is a huge demand for medical rescue resources, but marathon events in various places are facing the embarrassment of "lack of internal strength", especially the lack of medical training related to marathon for medical staff.

　　At the same time, although the public’s participation in the marathon is getting higher and higher, it is actually very difficult for the event operators to make ends meet, and even fewer can make direct profits. Many city marathons are in an embarrassing situation of not making money because of problems such as vague brand positioning, rough operation and making money at a loss.

　　At present, the operation of domestic marathon events mainly depends on government subsidies and independent investment, and some local marathon events also expand ticket income, tourism training, derivatives and other aspects of income. In terms of investment promotion, except for some head events, many marathons have shortcomings in sponsorship. From the perspective of the government, all localities are keen to hold marathon events, mainly because of the brand effect of fancy cities and its pulling effect on local tourism, catering, accommodation and other industries.

　　"Only high-quality competitions and high-quality runners can truly maximize the economic and social benefits of the marathon industry." Some experts believe that the domestic marathon is in the transition period and running-in period, and many operations need to be standardized. In addition to the related market economy as the main axis, the benefits of marathon events are more social and urban benefits.

　　As a matter of fact, people’s enthusiasm for participation is not diminished, and the demand for sports consumption is huge. Driven by the interests of all parties, the organizers of the event have staged farce from time to time while the domestic marathon is in full swing. Runners and organizers who lack the awareness of rules, from banning drugs and replacing races to cutting corners and handing the national flag, are overdrawing and damaging the marathon brand and marathon culture.

　　The Annual Report of 2018 China Marathon of China Athletics Association, while affirming the achievements, also revealed the difficulties and challenges faced by the development of China Marathon, including the weak cultural foundation of marathon and the imperfect awareness of industry rules; Product innovation is insufficient, and the homogenization of events is obvious; The concept and method of industry supervision need to be innovated urgently; Penalties for violations of the relevant organizers are not timely; The competitive level of marathon still needs to be improved.

　　According to reports, the awareness of rules has now become the consensus in the industry. According to the plan, China Athletics Association will improve six kinds of management documents such as competition management, competition discipline, international activities, management of operating companies and club management this year, and release the organization guide and competition guide for marathon events. The standardized and healthy development of marathon has become a new expectation of the industry.

Although many people are concerned about Xiaomi’s every move to build a car, on August 14th, Lei Jun made almost no mention of this major strategy in that three-hour annual "growth" speech. The news that Baidu gave up building a car almost at the same time cast a new shadow over the prospect of Xiaomi’s car.

However, after ten days, it seems that the peak has turned around.

On August 24th, according to a report in Reuters, Xiaomi has been approved by relevant departments to produce electric vehicles, which means that the mass production and listing in 2024, which Xiaomi has been emphasizing, is just a short step away.

In fact, before this news appeared, Xiaomi Automobile had a lot of actions.

A few days ago, pictures of Lei Jun, chairman of Xiaomi Group, Lu Weibing, president of Xiaomi Group, Hu Zhengnan, a partner of Shunwei Capital Investment, and others doing a road test for new cars in Xinjiang have spread all over social media. At the same time, the news that the domain name of "xiaomiev.com" website was exposed and the factory recruited people also confirmed that Xiaomi started to accelerate.

Weibo screenshot

Winning the qualification of building a car means that Xiaomi can finally sit on the table and participate in this competition.

It’s just that the new energy market at that time when Lei Jun announced the construction of the car has changed greatly.

Today’s domestic new energy electric vehicle market is almost the super Red Sea comparable to the mobile phone industry. Xiaomi used to be the showstopper of the smart phone market. I don’t know if Xiaomi electric vehicle can still bear this role this time.

Two and a half years of "on paper"

It has been two and a half years since the official announcement of building a car in March 2021. No matter how many voices and industry changes there are in the market, Xiaomi seems to be unmoved and has always maintained a high degree of mystery about building a car.

On the one hand, of course, there are commercial confidentiality considerations. On the other hand, even if the product design is no better, it will not be able to enter mass production without obtaining qualifications. Too high-profile may cause trouble.

Previously, the industry generally believed that Xiaomi would undertake the qualification of building cars in Beijing Baowo, but in June this year, Beijing Baowo Automobile applied for cancellation of automobile production qualification by itself, which meant that Xiaomi could not directly obtain cooperation in qualification from Baowo.

At the same time, in the matter of seeking the qualification of building a car, Xiaomi is not the only one. Before that, Baidu, which also announced a high-profile car, never got the qualification of building a car.

At the beginning of the announcement of building a car, Xiaomi not only indicated that it would invest 10 billion yuan, but also directly gave the target of mass production and listing in 2024. However, due to concerns about overcapacity and slowing industry demand, relevant departments have been cautious when approving the company’s new electric vehicle production plan.

According to Reuters’s report in June, Tesla’s earlier plan to expand the Shanghai factory has not been approved. At the same time, some insiders said that Lucid Group, an American luxury electric vehicle manufacturer, wanted to produce cars in China, but was told that the possibility was very low.

According to the Financial Times in early August, Baidu finally gave up building its own car through Jidu, which was also related to the fact that it never got the qualification. In the end, it chose to take a step back and join hands with Geely Holding Group to create a new brand "Jiyue". Baidu and Jidu empowered the AI technology capabilities such as intelligent cockpit, intelligent driving and ERNIE Bot in the form of "technical partnership".

Xiaomi is the fourth enterprise approved by the National Development and Reform Commission since the end of 2017, which can be said to have crossed a big threshold.

However, domestic production and sales of new energy vehicles need "double qualifications", and Xiaomi has to obtain the approval of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology from the formal mass production to meet the "Regulations on the Administration of New Energy Vehicle Manufacturers and Products Access".

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has not disclosed the information related to Xiaomi Automobile at present, which is probably why even if some media go to ask Xiaomi for evidence, the other party still chooses to be silent. After all, everything that may bring variables needs to be avoided before the dust settles and the production line really starts.

Is Xiaomi ready for the "hand-to-hand" battle?

Regardless of the level of investment or R&D strength, after years of baptism in the hardware industry, probably few people will be too worried about Xiaomi’s problems in design, R&D and production. However, Xiaomi’s own problem does not mean that its car-making career is smooth. After all, the external environment has changed.

First, the impact on its main business. The financial report released in May showed that Xiaomi’s revenue in the latest quarter dropped by 18.9%. In the case of declining demand for smart hardware such as mobile phones, Xiaomi urgently needs to shift its smart phone business to a more diversified direction.

Xiaomi 2023 Q1 Financial Report

Then there is Xiaomi facing the most unfavorable changes in the market environment.

The seriousness of this challenge can be seen from the utilization rate of domestic automobile production plants.

According to the data of the Passenger Car Association, by the end of 2022, the annual output of domestic automobile production lines (including factories producing internal combustion engines) will reach 43 million, but its utilization rate is currently only 54.5%, lower than 66.6% in 2017.

Serious overcapacity is also related to the increasingly fierce competition environment in the automobile industry.

Since the beginning of this year, major car companies have started a wave of price cuts, and the superimposed consumer demand has been sluggish, and competition has further intensified. Although the share of the electric vehicle market is increasing, the profits of car companies have not increased significantly.

On the day when Lei Jun delivered his annual speech, Tesla announced another price reduction promotion. Later, new forces including Ideal and Weilai had to continue to follow up.

Even though the G6, a new explosion model, was launched in the first half of the year, Tucki’s financial report for the new quarter was still ugly, with negative gross profit margin and increasing losses for two consecutive quarters.

According to market rumors, the price of the newly redesigned Tesla Model 3 may further drop to around 200,000 after removing the radar cost reduction and upgrading the manufacturing process. Once this model is listed in September or October and begins to deliver quickly, it will undoubtedly bring a new round of competitive pressure to the new domestic forces.

For Xiaomi Automobile, it is a false proposition whether it is necessary to continue the high cost performance it has been pursuing in the field of mobile phones.

Because, the core competitiveness of most domestic new energy vehicles that sell well today is "super high" cost performance, especially in the comfortable configuration and uncompromising safety configuration that some traditional car manufacturers are unwilling to make profits.

The brand image created by Xiaomi all the year round also makes it difficult for its cars to directly enter the high-end market like Weilai. Then, how to repackage the "cost performance" in large consumer goods like cars is probably an urgent problem that Xiaomi cars need to solve before listing.

Fortunately, what Xiaomi lacks most is the brand effect and exposure in the early stage. As long as the configuration is reasonable enough, the price also has an advantage. Even if ordinary consumers will shop around, some rice noodles will probably be willing to pay for Lei Jun’s last fight.

After all, Lei Jun once said that Xiaomi’s entry into the field of electric vehicles would be his last important entrepreneurial project. Recently, he also posted a photo of employees holding the banner "Fight for Xiaomi Automobile" on his personal social media account in Weibo.

In this last battle, Xiaomi needs to face hand-to-hand combat as soon as he comes up, and success or failure is only between thoughts.