The company that poached Hugo Barra, a top executive of Google's Android division, sold a million phones in 86 seconds; 1160 phones per second. And then they sold 300,000 phones in 4 minute 12 seconds. What company is this? What else do they produce? How old is it?
Three year old Xiaomi has taken the Chinese smartphone market by storm. Founded in 2010, the company has grabbed 5% of the growing market--larger share than heavyweight Apple.
Core strengths:
1. high-end specs, including the latest quad-core processors from NVIDIA and Qualcomm
2. low price almost close to incurred costs. Apple's three year old, lower-specs phones are sold for higher prices than Xiaomi's latest high-spec phones.
For the curios lot, Xiaomi phones are priced roughly between $300 and $500 in the Chinese market.
2. low price almost close to incurred costs. Apple's three year old, lower-specs phones are sold for higher prices than Xiaomi's latest high-spec phones.
For the curios lot, Xiaomi phones are priced roughly between $300 and $500 in the Chinese market.
With this meagre hardware margins, the company aims to monetize later on in content and services-- a strategy that has been successfully experimented by some biggies.
Xiaomi has been called 'Chinese Apple' for its phenomenal rise, insistence on high quality and top specs, and weird marketing strategies.
Analogists do not restrain themselves by calling Xiaomi as 'Chinese Apple'. Lei Jun, the founder, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi has been notoriously over-equated with Steve Jobs of Apple--for his passion for jeans-black T outfit, and their similar business strategies. Lei is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor who pioneered many companies and headed the well known Kingsoft for a long time.
The company has currently limited its products to China. Its international ambitions and plans are yet to be revealed. However, hiring someone like Hugo Barra as Vice President in charge of global expansion points at their highly ambitious plans. And it is heard that focus will be more on developing economies with big population. This puts India and African nations in the Xiaomi radar.
Xiaomi's main portfolio of products includes:
- Xiaomi Phones: high quality and performance Android devices
- MIUI ROM: highly customizable ROM that can be flashed across multiple Android devices
- MiTalk: a preeminent messaging application
- MiBox: A smart set-top box that enriches TV experience.
- Xiaomi Phones: high quality and performance Android devices
- MIUI ROM: highly customizable ROM that can be flashed across multiple Android devices
- MiTalk: a preeminent messaging application
- MiBox: A smart set-top box that enriches TV experience.
- With this meagre hardware margins, the company aims to monetize later on in content and services-- a strategy that has been successfully experimented by some biggies.
- Xiaomi runs forked Android named miUI. It doesn't direct much traffic to Google's search or content. So the Android dominance in China won't give much benefit to Google.
- Xiaomi runs forked Android named miUI. It doesn't direct much traffic to Google's search or content. So the Android dominance in China won't give much benefit to Google.
- Xiaomi shipped 7 million smartphones last year; aims to ship 20 million this year.
- Xiaomi shipped 7 million smartphones last year; aims to ship 20 million this year.
- i shipped 7 million smartphones last year; aims to ship 20 million this year.