I first heard about Xiaomi in 2012 while reading about how it is developing into a culture among its many loyal users, just the same way Apple’s iPhone has so many loyal followers (fanboys) who stick around in long queues for a launch and eagerly attending product launches.
It was an article that I read over at The NewWeb: Why China’s Xiaomi is inspiring loyalty that rivals Apple “fanboys” and Google “fandroids.“This article was published in August 2012.
What’s responsible for the growth of this brand?
The CEO of Xiaomi is Lei Jun; a charismatic leader who is charismatic and inspires loyalty in his customers. He’s even famed to be dressed like Steve Jobs and make his loyal fans anticipate the price of new phones. He formerly served as the CEO at Kingsoft and is one of the co-founders of Joyo, a Chinese ecommerce site that was bought by Amazon.
Xiaomi phones have grown among its core users in China who are very familiar with its MIUI skin for Android Operating system for two years before the Xiaomi phones were made; and the first Xiaomi phone was made in August 2011. The phone was called the Mi-One which went on to sell 3.5 million in unit. In 2012, the Mi-Two was released with many of the Xiaomi fans that often referred to themselves as “mi-fen” in Chinese where there to attend. The Mi-Three started selling in 2013.
In 2012 the total phone sold was 7.19 million. Lei, the CEO, recently announced that Xiaomi is projecting to sell twice what they sold in 2013 which is 18.7 million. Their projection for 2013 was 20 million, but they hit 18.7 million which is close. What this means is that we are expecting Xiaomi to sell close to 40 million units of its smartphones from what its CEO says.
This is a company that only started in 2010 and has already outsold Apple’s iPhone in China as at 2013 according to Canalys a research firm. They have however not been able to unseat Samsung who still sells more smartphones.
Xiaomi is prepared to start selling beyond China. Hugo Barra who was still at Android as at last year has been employed by Xiaomi; and Xiaomi is coming to Singapore, as shared by Hugo Barra on his Google Plus Page.
These are signs that the reason Barra was hired was to help in the global expansion of the brand that has since grown its stronghold beyond mainland China.
Xiaomi is planning to create stores that are similar to Apple Stores, but this is not with the intention to sell smartphones or TV which makes up the company’s two biggest product category, but to sell accessories. Most of the phones that Xiaomi sells are sold online and not in offline stores.
In China there’s Xiaomi, Micromax in India and Tecno in Nigeria–all these smartphones are running Google’s Android. This is a testament to the growth of the Android operating system.
Are we going to someday see Xiaomi as a company setting up offices in Nigeria like it just did in Singapore? Time is going to tell. Although 2014 may be too early to start expecting them to come into Africa and then Nigeria, but who knows.
