Xiaomi is the best emerging name in the world of smart phone that is reportedly gaining popularity all over the globe and has already captured the leading spot for best-selling smart phone brand after Apple and Samsung.
The company has become a well-recognized brand in technological sector and is still looking to hit the mainstream circle through prospective projects. However, the entire background for this rising brand can be found below:
Xiaomi stands in the World’s fastest growing brand in Smart phone:
Xiaomi made total shipments of 15.1 million smartphones particularly in the mainland of China splitting a share of 14% on all smartphones units selling out in the second quarter of 2014 that has placed Xiaomi as the leading vendor of smartphones in China. The company overtakes Samsung in China for the first time in Q2 2014, whose market share dropped to 12%, adding Lenovo and Yulong attributed 12% for each. Xiaomi leap over considerably from the last quarter when it held a market share of 10.7% matching up with 18.3% share of Samsung and levono’s 11%. However, the domestic performance of Xiaomi has led it to one of the largest smartphone brand accounted 5% of total shipments in the world.
In 2010, the company duly started its journey in the competitive business environment of smart phone and during a short frame of time; the company has become successful to get endorsed as leading company in global smart phone industry. The company was founded by eight employees worked in Kingsoft, a “Microsoft-esque “software company where Jun Lei is the CEO and Bin Lin the president. The company deems as the successful Initial Public Offering (IPO) at Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE), where it covers a market capital of $3.6 billion. Lin has a great past experience working with Microsoft and acted as VP of Google China institute of engineering.
Valuation of funding:
The company had raised their valuation from $4 billion to $10 billion in August 2013 that means doubled the valuation through funding in a series D round. However, three years back, the company has successfully risen its funding to $350 million on three rounds. Relatively, the market capital of Apple and Facebook was around $420 billion and $101 billion in the same period respectively. It shows, both the companies will continue to rest at flagship level in many years ahead than Xiaomi.
Company build
The major difference that Brings android a competitive edge than iOS is its open source feature. The android is featuring as a Open source software that enable the developers or users to deploy it as a main source code and modify it in a diverse manners, but keeping it friendly with a wide array of android applications. For instance, Cyanogenmod operating system is a highly modified form of Android likewise, MIUI is the android-modified operating system designed by Xiaomi in the year 2011 and launched its first smartphone named M1 which possessed MIUI software. As far as its alterations are concerned, the updates of MIUI are regularly sent to key testers for better optimization.
Product line:
Xiaomi is a popular brand that contains wide range of product line under its cover. The product line is comprised on smartphones, smart TV’s, wearable and tablets. In smart phone segment, there are three big blockbuster smart phone series such as Redmi, redmi Note, Mi3 and Mi4. A tablet section contains a Mi Pad, a 47-inch smart TV refers as Mi TV and a recent addition Mi Band in wearable category.
Xiaomi’s selling strategy is very different from other smartphone brands as they only market and sell their products through online mediums under small group of packages i.e. 100 units and cannot be put up for sale at retail stores other than China. The purpose behind of this strategy is that they can sell number of phone at once within a second once deal has been made which helps in building the hype of selling considerable units at once as compared to new launches of premium Apple brand.
Xiaomi has effectively used the social media for building a fan club of millions. Due to learning the art and science of social media, Lei has raised the 10 million followers on weibo and due to less spending in marketing activities (around 1% as compared to 5% by Samsung). The heavy savings from the marketing hand let the company in assuring quality shipments of products under economical prizes that a middle class citizen can afford within limited budget. Mi 3 is retailing at $270, which is far lesser in price as compared to same features of Samsung and iPhone.
Revolution is reflected from the Name:
Xiaomi states in their company profile page that “MI “is the acronym of “Mobile internet” but that may be the alleged abbreviation. The actual meaning of Xiao mi is a “Little rice” or millet or it may refers to depiction portrayed by Chairman Mao on Communist party.
In a sum up, it can be said that the company has notably achieved a sophisticated brand image within a limited time frame but is still a long way to go in order to beat the supremacy of leading smart phone brands Samsung and Apple.
