A few years ago, Xiaomi was considered just another Chinese manufacturer struggling to make a name for itself on a market stuffed with similar companies. But this was happening back in 2010, as right now, Xiaomi has become China’s number 1 smartphone manufacturer, surpassing Huawei, according to Android Headlines.
The manufacturer had a very ambitious goal
After a very successful 2014, the company set a very big goal for 2015, looking forward to selling between 80 and 100 million devices. They didn’t manage to achieve it, selling around 70 million devices, but the information wasn’t confirmed yet.
Xiaomi CEO, Lei Jun, confirmed that this number is indeed accurate and this number doesn’t mean that 2015 wasn’t a good year, compared with 2014, when ‘only’ 61 smartphones were sold. In our book, this is a serious growth.
Xiaomi gave no details about the reasons that made them miss their target, but it’s not hard to guess that one of them was the intense competition coming from Huawei Technologies. The latter launched one of the best smartphones of 2015, Nexus 6P, the result of their partnership with Google.
Huawei aims to other markets as well
Huawei was also the leading vendor in China in Q3 2015 and the third-larges one in the world, managing to step up their shipments in Western European markets and releasing premium-priced devices through flash sales and online channels. Unfortunately for them, Xiaomi is still far from reaching these markets.
Finally, another reasons that might have been in Xiaomi’s way was the fact that many of its buyers are first-time smartphone owners who are attracted to the high-end specs of their phones, available for a very low price. In the mean time, this category is getting smaller, so the company’s sales are bound to be affected.
Overall, Xiaomi is still doing well and their expanding portfolio, now including wearables and home devices, should help them diversify their revenue stream.
