For a company that has been nicknamed China’s Apple, you’d think Xiaomi is making tons of money from smartphone sales. It turns out, it’s not.
According to a fresh report published by Reuters, Xiaomi has actually seen its smartphone sales plummet. For example, last year the company missed its global smartphones targets by 12%. In its home country things were even worse, as smartphone sales declined with a 45%.
Admits these news, Xiaomi seems quite untroubled. The company’s global vice-president Hugo Barra explained that Xiaomi’s business model wasn’t designed to make money from handset sales anyway. Actually China’s Apple relies on revenue coming from its home connected devices and software ecosystem.
Back in April, Xiaomi Vice President Liu De said the firm expects to see smart device revenue to double (up to $1.5 billion) this year.
Hugo Barra went as far as to say:
“Basically we’re giving them to you without making any money… we care about the recurring revenue streams over many years. We could sell 10 billion smartphones and we wouldn’t make a single dime in profits.”
But the future is full of promises for Xiaomi. The company just unveiled a gorgeous new device the Mi MIX and the Mi Note 2 which is compatible with US LTE bands and a cheap Mi5c handset – the first to take advantage of the company’s home grown chip – so sales might pick up again soon.
China’s Apple also announced its first time CES presence scheduled for January 2017. The company might (emphasis on the might) unveil an all-new global product on the grounds in Las Vegas, but this remains to be seen.
Unlike other Chinese competitors like LeEco which have taken the market by storm quite recklessly (given the amount of debit LeEco finds itself in), Xiaomi is planning its next step very carefully, not rushing things into a direction it might later regret. It’s seems like a pretty wise choice.
