Lei Jun: It is estimated that domestic substitution of high-end components will take 5-10 years, and Xiaomi will drive industry development.

During a recent media interview, Lei Jun stated that high-end development is a highly certain major direction for the future growth of China's automotive industry.

The domestic high-end car market is currently at a transitional juncture where product offerings are in flux. The traditional luxury car market structure that has persisted for decades is undergoing a comprehensive restructuring. Chinese本土 automotive brands are seeing their overall product competitiveness mature steadily, yet due to insufficient supply of quality high-end products, annual sales in this segment have recently declined significantly.

Meanwhile, price competition in the mid-to-low-end market has become increasingly fierce. In contrast, in the mid-to-high-end market, there remains a notable gap in the supply of quality products that truly meet consumer demand.

Lei Jun noted that China completed domestic substitution for the vast majority of automotive components as early as ten or even twenty years ago. The foundational barriers in vehicle design and manufacturing have long been eliminated, with differences among automakers now boiling down to varying levels of technological accumulation and quality control refinement.

In his view, core components in the mid-to-high-end automotive sector—including in-vehicle chips, onboard operating systems, and numerous mid-to-high-end chassis parts—are also rapidly advancing toward domestic substitution.

High-end components like carbon-ceramic brake discs, which were previously standard only on imported luxury cars priced over a million yuan, have now achieved domestic mass production and are gradually being adopted across more mainstream models, marking the entry into a full-category domestic substitution phase.

He estimates that complete self-reliance for all high-end automotive components will take another 5 to 10 years. Throughout this development cycle, companies like Xiaomi, with their full-chain technological expertise, need to play the role of chain leader, driving further iteration and upgrades of domestic high-end components, ultimately building a fully autonomous and controllable complete high-end automotive industry system.