Apple iPhone knockoff peddler Xiaomi will ratchet up its challenge to Apple by focusing on the high-end segment of the global smartphone market, according to the Chinese company’s founder and chief executive Lei Jun who also vows to roll out 20,000 new retail stores over the next three years across China.
Iris Deng for the South China Morning Post:
“[We aim to] fully benchmark against Apple in [terms of] product and experience, and become China’s biggest high-end brand in the next three years,” Lei said in a post on microblogging platform Weibo on Tuesday, as he reiterated the company’s strategic goal to develop into the world’s largest smartphone vendor in the same period.
Lei’s post, published the same day the Beijing-based company’s management had their first strategic meeting after the Lunar New Year break, described competition in the high-end smartphone arena as “a war of life and death”, which Xiaomi must overcome to continue growing.
Apple unseated Samsung Electronics to become the world’s top smartphone vendor in the fourth quarter last year, seizing a 22 per cent global market share on the back of strong demand for its iPhone 13 line, according to a report published last month by Canalys. The independent analyst firm said Chinese Android smartphone vendors Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo rounded out the global top five ranking last quarter.
In November, Xiaomi announced an ambitious retail infrastructure programme that will see it roll out 20,000 new retail stores over the next three years across China’s countryside, the area which accounts for 70 per cent of the domestic smartphone market. It currently operates a network of more than 10,000 bricks-and-mortar stores across the country.
MacDailyNews Take: Thinking customers want real iPhones. 20,000 more shoebox-sized Apple Retail Store knockoffs peddling yet another Apple iPhone knockoff on every street corner in China aren’t going to change that fact, Huawei, er, Xiaomi.
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Why bothers . Just stealing would be easier, isn’t China is very good at stealing and cheating it’s way to the top?
Their ambition is to be the leading copier of iPhones instead of Samsung, who are currently the leading copier of iPhones.
Bad news for Samsung, but I can’t imagine Apple being too concerned.
Xiaomi is just dreaming – and weak
Inherit the earth? Xiao’s too meek
To win you need strength
And some depth to your length
Xiaomi’s just a little pipsqueak.
So Xiaomi is really going to step up its effort to sell its mI_Pads and mI_phones in thousands of added stores?
The picture above shows a store like Apple stores but Xiaomi sells vacuum cleaners, hair dryers and air purifiers along with many other things. There doesn’t seem like there’s room for those product displays in their stores.
I could honestly give a ***t what happens in the Chinese market. It’s our American corporations that need spanking and schooling. Why should that matter, unless they want to admit that they are firmly ensconced with the CCP for profit? That isn’t hard to respect, it is impossible. Pfft. Go to ****, Apple.
“firmly ensconced with the CCP for profit?”
Nothing says it better and more succintly than that regarding Apple in China IGNORING human rights violations in pursuit of greed and profits. Well done, James…
The answer is really quite simple – many PC users think that market share is the be all and end all – Apple knows that profit share is what counts. I expect another 10 years of whining from XiaoMi, but I suppose their investors will know how they really stand. Funny quote but try your best to ignore these guys. They are riding your coattails.
PS. Yes Chinese users want to use iPhone. 🙂