Meet Xiaomi, China’s next Smartphone King
As it stands, the Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi (pronounced as shaomi) has enthroned Samsung in China and we believe this is just the beginning, as its has managed to ship more units than its South Korea-based rival this second quarter. Samsung’s latest financial quarterly results showed that the company has it’s revenues and profits dip for the first time in a long period.
With China having millions of smartphone users, Xiaomi’s latest financial performance is a clear indication that the company has evolved from just a small player in China to a giant migraine to its competition. This company was started in 2010 by Lei Jun, and have so far managed to capture over 14% of the Chinese market in the second quarter, according to research firm Canalys. They churn out 15 million smartphones, which is 240% improvement over the same period last year.
Xiaomi has a small lead over its major competition. Samsung, Huawei, Lenovo and Yulong all have more than 10% of the total market. Even if Samsung has been predicted to rebound in the third quarter, Xiaomi shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
The biggest challenge they have to over come to give Samsung a run for their money is market their latest Mi 4 smartphone out of China,a move they have embarked on starting with Europe. With Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Thailand and Turkey all mentioned as expansion targets. Whether they will have Africa on their radar soon is yet to be seen.
The company is yet to deliver on 4G LTE phones to address the growing smartphone market with that technology. Xiaomi been quietly stocking on tech talent out of China with their latest big poach a former Google executive Hugo Barra to help fulfill global ambitions.
The privately-held company has largely been criticized for making phones Apple knockoffs — typically price at around $130, something Samsung started with their first Galaxy series.
“Our business model is more similar to Amazon,” Lei told CNN last year, referring to Amazon’s (AMZN, Tech30) habit of selling hardware at cost.
 has enthroned Samsung in China and we believe this is just the beginning, as its has managed to ship more units than its Sout){kind=link}