Quadcore Snapdragon S4 Pro 28nm CPU, 2 GB RAM, 16 GB memory, 2000 MaH battery, 8 MP wide-angle f2.0 camera, 342 PPI in a 4.3 inch IPS display, all the bells and whistles of MIUI on Android 4.1. All for… 1999 RMB.
What is this madness?!
Not Apple, not HTC, not even Samsung could pull off a superphone with such value. It took a Beijing-based startup called Xiaomi to pull this off. What’s even more amazing is that the company only sold its first phone last year. It’s not even David beating Goliath, it’s more like an ant overturning an elephant. In many ways, this company represents the best of Chinese innovation. With Xiaomi, China has arrived on the global tech stage.
Xiaomi founder Lei Jun is a successful serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist, and people already consider him as the Steve Jobs of China. Indeed, the fan fervor for Xiaomi can rival that of any Apple product. Xiaomi’s focus on showmanship, design, user experience, and brand loyalty for a single excellent product has already propelled its market value to USD 4 billion, ahead of Blackberry. Not bad for a two-year old company.
Just like Apple, Xiaomi champions holistic innovation - hardware as mentioned above, software with its beautifully-designed MIUI, distribution channels with batch-based online reservations, marketing with massively viral social media campaigns, and most crucially, disruptive pricing. It is currently selling at a loss. Lei Jun claimed that the handset alone costs 2350 RMB to produce. But so what? With the pricing, they not only capture market share but fervent loyalty from the growing numbers of MiFen as it calls its fanbase.
Moreover, Xiaomi has built an identity for Chinese innovation on the world stage - extreme pricing, world-beating quality, innovative operations, and savvy bottom-up marketing. Momentum is on its side, so Xiaomi will only get bigger and better. It has already disrupted the smartphone market in China. The rest of the world better watch out for it.
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