Who is Xiaomi?
（ZT)Tech start-up Xiaomi certainly raised a few eyebrows when it outsold Apple in the world’s largest smartphone market – China. The feat was made all the more impressive by the fact the company only launched in 2010 and didn’t begin shipping smartphones until 2011.
So just who is this company and how did they achieve such explosive growth? It’s a question investigated by Time Magazine’s Kevin Kelleher, who argues in his profile of the company that price and the nature of the Chinese market have played an important role:
Xiaomi designs its phones with high-end specs and sells them at midrange prices. Xiaomi phones can’t touch the iPhone or the Galaxy in terms of quality (yet), but the company beats them handily on price, the paramount factor for many consumers in China… It helps that the company has a contract with China Mobile, the country’s state-owned telecom giant. China has 745 million customers (465 million smartphones and growing) its 3G network.
Needless to say, the tech industry is beginning to take notice. Especially after the company poached one of Google’s most senior executives:
Outside of China, Xiaomi began to gain notice in July, when research firm Canalys said that the company’s market share in China surpassed Apple for the first time in the second quarter. Apple’s share fell from 8% to 5% in a single quarter. Around that time, Xiaomi unveiled its Hongmi, or Red Rice, phone for around $130 and offered 100,000 handsets for sale online. It sold out in 90 seconds.
The company made even bigger waves in late August, when it hired Hugo Barra from Google. Barra, who was head of product development at Google’s Android unit, was impressed with how the company forked Android to its handsets.
However, despite its high profile recruits, whether the company’s success can be replicated outside China remains a major question:
It’s not clear whether it can maintain its intensive focus on customer experience as it moves into new markets, each with its own peculiar needs. Or whether it can grow quickly in them without the kind of support it receives from China Mobile. Or, most importantly, whether it can grow into new countries and new product categories with its small margins. 卖期货，饥饿营销，把消费者当猴耍。 不过有一句说一句，miui还算比较好用滴:lol 山寨机里面贵的，要买这种机器大把便宜选择 还有小辣椒
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