Xiaomi Battles To Reinvent Itself as China's Apple (ft.com) 28
Push into the premium smartphone market is a 'life or death' battle for budget brand. From a report: In February, Xiaomi founder and chief executive Lei Jun threw down the gauntlet to Apple and Samsung, vowing to make his company China's top-selling premium brand in three years. "[It's] a war of life and death," Lei said in a post on Chinese social media site Weibo. Xiaomi, the world's second-largest smartphone vendor, is a master of reinvention, making everything from rice cookers to e-scooters. If all goes to plan, the company will roll out its electric vehicle in 2024, ahead of arch-rival Apple. But as Beijing's tech crackdown takes hold, Lei is facing the potential for greater regulation at a time companies around the world are suffering from a global chip shortage. As China works to bring Big Tech to heel, Xiaomi's Hong Kong-listed shares have fallen more than 50 per cent from a year ago to about HK$12 (US$1.50). Its growth momentum also hinges on whether it can fend off its domestic and international rivals, said analysts.
[...] According to former and current employees and industry analysts, Xiaomi's biggest hurdle to realising its goals of overtaking Apple and Samsung is convincing consumers of its high-end pedigree. Xiaomi, launched in 2010, made a name for itself building a loyal community of "mi fen," Xiaomi fans who bought products for the specifications, such as more advanced processors, at a cheaper price. While it ranks third in overall sales in China, it only holds five per cent of the global premium market, in which phones are priced at more than $400. "It will be difficult to defeat Samsung and Apple," said a former executive. "It does not play to Xiaomi's strengths, it doesn't have the brand power Apple and Samsung have, and they are not good at selling to people who don't care about specs." The company's phones have evolved. Xiaomi's 12 series phones, released in March and costing $749 for the most basic version, are designed to compete with Apple's $799 iPhone 13. As part of the launch, Xiaomi has pledged to open 20,000 more stores on top of the 10,000 they already have in China, and has changed the branding on its 12 series so they are no longer known by the "Mi" prefix that was the calling card of their previous hardware. But former company executives said the phones needed more than a name change. Xiaomi's previous attempts to break free of its budget image have ended in disappointment.
[...] According to former and current employees and industry analysts, Xiaomi's biggest hurdle to realising its goals of overtaking Apple and Samsung is convincing consumers of its high-end pedigree. Xiaomi, launched in 2010, made a name for itself building a loyal community of "mi fen," Xiaomi fans who bought products for the specifications, such as more advanced processors, at a cheaper price. While it ranks third in overall sales in China, it only holds five per cent of the global premium market, in which phones are priced at more than $400. "It will be difficult to defeat Samsung and Apple," said a former executive. "It does not play to Xiaomi's strengths, it doesn't have the brand power Apple and Samsung have, and they are not good at selling to people who don't care about specs." The company's phones have evolved. Xiaomi's 12 series phones, released in March and costing $749 for the most basic version, are designed to compete with Apple's $799 iPhone 13. As part of the launch, Xiaomi has pledged to open 20,000 more stores on top of the 10,000 they already have in China, and has changed the branding on its 12 series so they are no longer known by the "Mi" prefix that was the calling card of their previous hardware. But former company executives said the phones needed more than a name change. Xiaomi's previous attempts to break free of its budget image have ended in disappointment.
Xiaomi PoCo F3 is great! (Score:3, Interesting)
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Is there any evidence for this spyware? I know someone found a file of banned keywords in the firmware once, but that's completely different and wasn't used on export models.
Need some better linkage (Score:2)
Need a better name (Score:2)
Rebranding into the premium market means that you need Western-friendly pronunciation. Like it or not, people who pay attention to that sort of thing look to the West for premium brands. While there are premium Asian brands, they are relatively few.
If you have a name celebrities can't pronounce, you won't be premium. That's the way it is right now.
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Yves Saint Laurent?
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And dozens of other Italian brands...
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(ooops, that sounds like I'm saying YSL is Italian. I'm not!)
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Rebranding into the premium market means that you need Western-friendly pronunciation. Like it or not, people who pay attention to that sort of thing look to the West for premium brands.
Rubbish.
All you need is one nationwide TV advert to repeat the name a few times and everybody will know it.
If you have a name celebrities can't pronounce, you won't be premium. That's the way it is right now.
LOL! Every single "celebrity" is obsessed with having a name that nobody can pronounce or spell properly.
Cameras make a flagship (Score:4, Insightful)
Phones loo to be going the route of the PC's nowadays where for nongaming tasks the difference between flagship and midrange is pretty meaningless. CPU's have gotten better and better, the displays are all quite good with a number of phones even on the lower end boasting OLED or 90Hz+ displays and generally having the basic acceptable features for today (NFC, Fingerprint reader).
Maybe theres other features that some people put at a premium but are people buying flagship phone because they specifically want those things or just because the new model is out and more money equals better phone and new stuff is a pleasant surprise. Apple certainly sets the bar here since they can always release a $800+ model and people will default buy it.
The big distintion at least to me seems to be camera quality with the Samsung, Google Pixel and iPhones all having very high quality cameras while many midrange and low end phones have decent cameras but don't compare to those high end models. Camera tech on all those phones now though is very software driven now so Xiaomi probably needs to take this time to get the tech up to par with those models.
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Besides point and shoot needs a good camera and media stack supports and enables content creators. There's a lot of people making video content for various social media sites entirely on their phones.
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https://www.dxomark.com/smartp... [dxomark.com]
Xiaomi seems to be doing ok there...
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Perhaps they need to advertise it better than because a cursory search for best smartphone cameras seems to turn up the consensus that for the best experience its Apple, Google and Samsung, which is the "flagship" market they want to dominate so something is not clicking there yet. Apple especially has held that crown for awhile now it seems like.
https://www.techradar.com/news... [techradar.com]
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/b... [tomsguide.com]
https://www.digitalcameraworld... [digitalcameraworld.com]
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Xiaomi has some of the best cameras on the market. They consistently do well in benchmarks, and offer a lot of features that customers seem to be demanding. Stuff like extensive easy photoshopping tools for selfies. They cover the whole range from ultra-realistic and accurate photos to completely fake Instagram ready ones.
Name change? (Score:2)
A number of companies, most notably car companies, have spawned new subsidiaries for luxury products, Lexus, Infinity, Acura, etc.
Perhaps China's maker of all things budget needs to do the same? Then, when (if?) they are successful, they can roll their existing brand name into the new luxury brand name, doing away with being known as a budget option entirely.
Dunno, just thinking out loud here.
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Easily disproved: MacOS is 10% of the market, iPhone is 25% of the market.
Failed already. (Score:3)
If you try to re-invent yourself as someone else, you've already failed. Learn from others, but don't go overboard on copying others. Stop seeing entities as God.
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The story is a bit odd really, Xiaomi is already very popular and offers a wide range of products compared to Apple. Everything from kitchen appliances to vacuum cleaners to phones. Maybe they want to rival Apple in the mobile space, but they already do that with their flagships, at least in terms of performance and quality.
The only thing they could really want to copy at this point is Apple's reality distortion field. Sell a $400 phone for $800 plus overpriced accessories. Right now Xiaomi is a bit more ge
Like Apple? (Score:1)
A is not A (Score:2)
Apple has a history of innovating. Xiaomi?
updates (Score:1)
UP Board 10th Blueprint 2023 (Score:1)