The Xiaomi Corporation was founded 8 years ago in China, by Lei Jun and seven other partners. In 2011, Xiaomi officially launched the Xiaomi Mi 1 smartphone with MIUI firmware based on Android. In 2012, the company launched their second smartphone, Xiaomi Mi 2 which the company claims sold over 10 million units within 11 months of its launch. The company since then has seen tremendous growth and in the last year crossed the 17 billion USD sales mark.
Expansion Outside China
Xiaomi announced their expansion outside China in 2014 and that is when the company launched their first smartphone in India. The smartphone was called the Mi 3 which due to its impressive specs and low price tag raked in a lot of sales for the company. The Mi 3 had the Quad-Core Snapdragon 800 SoC at almost half the price of the Google Nexus 5 and Galaxy s4 which had the same chipset. This smartphone changed the perspective people had about Chinese handsets. From being cheap and low quality to low-cost high-value products in the eyes of the consumers.
2013-2014 was the period when India was seeing its massive e-commerce transition. It allowed Xiaomi to scale quickly and not wait to open physical brick and mortar stores. Since then, Xiaomi has continuously launched smartphones with latest specs at comparatively low prices. Some of the devices include the Redmi and Redmi Note series smartphones.
At the same time, Xiaomi was performing well in other countries like Singapore and Brazil. Back in 2017, the company expanded into Pakistan and Bangladesh. Up until now, the company has been launching smartphones in Tier 2 countries but, according to the latest announcements it company is now moving into Tier 1 countries.
Tier 1 Expansion
Last year Xiaomi spread their presence to Spain and France with the Mi A1 & Mi Mix 2 smartphones. Recently, the company has announced that they will officially make their way into the United Kingdom and Ireland. The Ireland launch is set to November 1 while the UK launch is set to November 8. The company will also open a physical MI experience store in White City, London after the launch. The company has partnered with Three UK to sell devices in both UK and Ireland. Three is a major telecom company in both the countries and will help with the propagation of products.
Xiaomi apparently plans to be one of the biggest smartphones company hence, they are continuously expanding into new regions and markets.
Smartphone’s The Limit?
The company is not only limited to smartphones, but they also offer a plethora of products ranging from security devices to fitness products and even Mi Televisions & other consumer appliances.
Xioami is truly an unconventional company with unconventional strategies. The company keeps on acquiring start-ups and other unique companies to incorporate their products and technologies into their own offerings.
The more products you surf for on the Mi Global website, the crazier it gets. The company makes mobility vehicles like electric scooters, mijia shoes, and has even started selling smartly designed luggage trollies.
In other words, Xiaomi is not a company focused only on electronics. Whenever this ambitious company finds a product that can be improved or a problem that needs to be solved, they will rapidly develop solutions and products according to it. We can say this is just the start of a young, aspiring company and only time will tell what the future of the company holds.
