Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures
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Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures
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Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures
#2I bought an Amazfit Pace after Pebble went down. Boy is that thing broken: That smart watch has glitches showing the _time_, notifications are broken beyond repair - some plain don't show up and most others are duplicated and the watch soft reboots/crashes a lot.
I can see why the parent company might want to slow down a bit..
Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures
#3Too much competition from other Chinese phone maker and too fast diversification?
Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures
#4It's interesting what's going on here. They have gone on record before that they're not making a profit on their phones, and evidently their tactics are creating a bit of an internal mess. They've grown very rapidly.
I imported a Xiaomi Mi 4C a month or two ago for €100 (it still sells around that price). For that price you get a fantastic 5" screen, the same Snapdragon 808 chip / 2GB RAM as the €300 Nexus 5X, a more than decent camera and great build and battery life. The heavily customized OS is surprisingly tasteful and useable, and is being regularly updated with features and Android security updates. In addition the Android core of their custom OS will even get a promised update to Android 7.0 this year, despite the phone being on the market for nearly two years. I'm very happy with it.
If you look at the EU market in the same price category, you can only get utter crap. Specs and general usability of phones in the same price category do not compare, and you need to go well over €250 to find comparable phones. Even then, the software support of those competing devices still does not compare, mostly.
Given that, I do not believe for a second that Xiaomi is able to sell this phone sustainably for this price. Keeping costs low through a focus on Asian markets and low-overhead distribution costs does not magically remove the component and development costs that go into such a device for them to be able to make a profit on it for €100. What's more is that Xiaomi has several models with a 'low-end' price that have mid-to-high-end specs. You see that Xiaomi has quickly won popularity in the tech savvy west for their bang-for-buck value in smartphones despite usually not even selling there.
This is all great for the consumer, but evidently it cannot be (and is not) great for Xiaomi. They wanted market share and they got it, now it's time for the next step.
Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures
#5It's interesting what's going on here. They have gone on record before that they're not making a profit on their phones, and evidently their tactics are creating a bit of an internal mess. They've grown very rapidly. I imported a Xiaomi Mi 4C a month or two ago for €100 (it still sells around that price). For that price you get a fantastic 5" screen, the same Snapdragon 808 chip / 2GB RAM as the €300 Nexus 5X, a more…
If their goal is marketshare and then profit, then step 2 is raising the price. Be it slowly (so it is less apparent to avoid bad publicity) or quick (guaranteed uproar, but only once).
An alternative theory could be their business case is related to "Xiaomi Can Silently Install Any App On Your Android Phone Using A Backdoor" [1]. One could come up with a theory their business case is related to that kind of behaviour. Ie. a front for Chinese government.
[1] https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/xiaomi-android-backdoor.ht...
Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures
#6It's interesting what's going on here. They have gone on record before that they're not making a profit on their phones, and evidently their tactics are creating a bit of an internal mess. They've grown very rapidly. I imported a Xiaomi Mi 4C a month or two ago for €100 (it still sells around that price). For that price you get a fantastic 5" screen, the same Snapdragon 808 chip / 2GB RAM as the €300 Nexus 5X, a more…
Are you sure it is Xiaomi selling under cost and not the other way around? Prices for other phones are excessive compared to Xiaomi and other Chinese brands with similar specs.
Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures
#7It's interesting what's going on here. They have gone on record before that they're not making a profit on their phones, and evidently their tactics are creating a bit of an internal mess. They've grown very rapidly. I imported a Xiaomi Mi 4C a month or two ago for €100 (it still sells around that price). For that price you get a fantastic 5" screen, the same Snapdragon 808 chip / 2GB RAM as the €300 Nexus 5X, a more…
There is an important supply chain related nuance in my opinion - in the US, distribution channels are critically important - Amazon, Best Buy etc. - but in Asia, this isn't always the case, in fact a flash sale on JD or some vendors stores directly means they can play with skinny margins and sell products. If you are selling something in Best Buy, there is a good chance that there is a 50% markup in many cases which is the customer acquisition cost that Best Buy is charging amongst others (limited inventory holding, logistics etc). Because big box retail doesn't have the same kind of foothold in asia and more direct website purchasing is popular, they are able to seemingly to pull off marketplace magic but the reality is their pricing wouldn't look that different if sold in Best Buy for instance. It still might be cheaper, but it wouldn't be the insane rock bottom pricing you are used to seeing reported on TechCrunch...
Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures
#8It's interesting what's going on here. They have gone on record before that they're not making a profit on their phones, and evidently their tactics are creating a bit of an internal mess. They've grown very rapidly. I imported a Xiaomi Mi 4C a month or two ago for €100 (it still sells around that price). For that price you get a fantastic 5" screen, the same Snapdragon 808 chip / 2GB RAM as the €300 Nexus 5X, a more…
If their goal is marketshare and then profit, then step 2 is raising the price. Be it slowly (so it is less apparent to avoid bad publicity) or quick (guaranteed uproar, but only once). An alternative theory could be their business case is related to "Xiaomi Can Silently Install Any App On Your Android Phone Using A Backdoor" [1]. One could come up with a theory their business case is related to that kind of behaviou…
And even without being a malicious front, you can see them as part of the Chinese economic strategy, moving away from manufacturing to innovation/marketing .
And it looks quite nice: Xiaomi build a phone brand. Uses brand to become a consumer electronic start-up hub(offering startups, Chinese startups, a great supply chain, marketing, IP protection - all the hard things for those startups) as a way to rapidly scale. And they will have better access, and preference to Chinese silicon suppliers(think the esp32 , a great chip, afaik it's only inside Chinese products) rising that industry.
Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures
#9It's interesting what's going on here. They have gone on record before that they're not making a profit on their phones, and evidently their tactics are creating a bit of an internal mess. They've grown very rapidly. I imported a Xiaomi Mi 4C a month or two ago for €100 (it still sells around that price). For that price you get a fantastic 5" screen, the same Snapdragon 808 chip / 2GB RAM as the €300 Nexus 5X, a more…
I believe I read that Xiaomi has an ecosystem model where they sell phones as loss-leaders at low margins in order to build their brand and capture customers for high margin software. I don't think that's going to work as they don't own the operating system.
Re: Xiaomi stops disclosing annual sales figures
#10It's interesting what's going on here. They have gone on record before that they're not making a profit on their phones, and evidently their tactics are creating a bit of an internal mess. They've grown very rapidly. I imported a Xiaomi Mi 4C a month or two ago for €100 (it still sells around that price). For that price you get a fantastic 5" screen, the same Snapdragon 808 chip / 2GB RAM as the €300 Nexus 5X, a more…
I believe I read that Xiaomi has an ecosystem model where they sell phones as loss-leaders at low margins in order to build their brand and capture customers for high margin software. I don't think that's going to work as they don't own the operating system.
It will work there are quite a few alternative app stores that do make money.
Considering that emerging markets sell phones without google play I would go on a limb and say that most android phones sold now come without the play store.