The success of Xiaomi was really about their price to performance ratio. Which they have been marketing it since its inception. They have been making phones with close to zero profits, and the business was only sustainable when they continue to have VC and money from Government (direct or not) pouring in. The trouble in the ~2014/2015 era was when they tried to make profit, because they have been growing so fast, with so many users they thought their brand has already capture certain mindset. A perfect storm happened as Huawei and Oppo ViVo were dialling up their competitiveness, not to mention their cheekiness ( or may be they really think they are ) against Apple.<p>So in 2015 ish news was they are running out of cash, and things turn south. But Xiaomi was lucky in that they realize their problem a lot earlier, make changes and keep them a float. And the new Xiaomi is now better and becomes more humble. Compared that to LeTV and LeEco.<p>Now they have been in talks with many 4G patents holders, once those are settled they will likely enter US and EU market*. ( Hence this PR article )<p>P.S - Even though you buy Xiaomi's hardware, you really should do yourself a flavour and install clean Android on it.
I currently owns a redmi note 4, Indian version<p>the hardware is great.<p>price is good,<p>but the software it's literally a spyware/adware, even after removing all the chinese crapware and preinstall adware from the stock rom there are still trying to send my data back to there chinese server,since removing some of there system app will crash the stock rom<p><a href="https://imgur.com/a/mlcgq" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/mlcgq</a><p>So if you are thinking of using stock rom, your privacy is at great risk.
Puff piece aside, Xiaomi is one of the Chinese brands that are usable outside the country.<p>Their Snapdragon based Mi flagships are lightweight (lots of plastic around a thin metallic frame, which in my opinion is the sensible way to design a phone) with good screens and crappy cameras. The LineageOS port is well developed and has been my daily device for about a year now.<p>Installing LineageOS was trivial once you unlocked the bootloader, which was the only roadblock since the instructions were outdated, but at no point required reading Chinese. It involved giving them a phone number that could receive SMS but a temporary number and throwaway email worked. People joke about how much spyware is on the phone, which is a possbility, but outside the application processor I fail to see why there would be more than other manufacturers.<p>Their Intel based Macbook clones are also well built and runs Debian sid without any surprises.<p>This is probably how the Chinese brands will move up the value chain in the western hemisphere. Not by launching new brands but by direct consumer sales to people who buy from digital marketplaces anyway.
I wish there was a good catalog of Chinese devices we could import to America. One of my friends can read Chinese and showed me a color E-ink note taking tablet that's available in China that was similar to reMarkable. That's something I'd love to get my hands on. I'm sure there are many other nuggets from China that don't make their way over here for the general consumer market that some people would love to buy.
This article is very bad by wired standards. Things I noticed:<p>> To find the answers to these questions, we have to go back to Xiaomi’s 2015-2016 debacle, which saw smartphone sales decline to a rumored 41 million in 2016, from a reported 70 million a year earlier.<p>As if one year is enough to proclaim a company's fall and rise. Businesses run on multi year cycle and 1 down year might be a small blip. Additionally, if the lower sale numbers were just <i>rumors</i>, there was no "fall" of Xiaomi, was there?<p>> Today, Xiaomi is being called a “Chinese phoenix.”<p>What is the source?<p>And there are so many editing mistakes:<p>> These include hundreds of thousands of hours of movies and shows — available a la carte or via an all-you-can-eat $7.50 monthly fee<p>Eat?<p>> Adding the word ‘connected’ to a <i>range of appliances doesn't a smart home make</i> — even Apple hasn't pulled off that trick yet.
I like running stock Android and was considering buying Google Pixel 2 but it does not have a dual sim option which is a deal-breaker for me. I ended up buying Xiaomi mi A1 which runs stock android. I love it. There is one downside - the really bad camera and is probably the reason I will jump ship again when a worthy product comes out.<p>I would gladly pay an extra $100 or $200 for a Xiaomi mi A1 second edition with a great optically stabilized camera and NFC.<p>It's a shame because this phone proves it is possible to build a great phone for little money, fix a few little things and you end up with a phone that can compete with flagships that are two or three times more expensive. That might not be in Xiaomi's interest though.
Xiaomi dynamics are about as unpredictive of its future success as a given cryptocurrency's exchange rate. At least there's less buzz here.<p>Xiaomi has a reasonable average quality and a few consistently interesting product lines (I myself enjoy using Mi 5s and will probably change it for Mi 7), and a ton of... strange... gimmicks. When they were being enthusiastically buried by various news outlets, I didn't consider it a real thing, neither do I put any stock in this renaissance. I would be a little surprised if they go bankrupt in 5 years, somewhat less so if they displace Huawei. They already have earned a certain place in market.
The only redeeming feature of Xiaomi phones is the price. It feels cheap in the hand, design is a very detailed rip-off of the latest iphone, software is horrid, hardware is unreliable (shaky gps, loose sim cards, etc.), battery life is mediocre. But it costs 1/4 of similarly spec'ed phone from Samsung.
No doubt Xiaomi has the best price/value USB C - DisplayPort converter but try to get the technical details (maximum amperage on the two USB A when power is plugged in / power is not plugged in) and you will hit a brick wall. Both the US and HK customer service essentially told me to get lost.
I don't see any of the commenters here understand why Xiaomi rise again, and ironically the author of this article.<p>Xiaomi is like Amazon in China's smart home market, except with a much stronger mobile department that Amazon would dream to get.