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.
- Go "Tesla" mode: Sell directly online or manage your own distribution – Only works if you pull off a unique product, makes the pricesheet much cleaner (examples: Apple and most hardware startups).
- Use Amazon for distribution to bypass retailers and their markup: That would have worked until 2015, but on one hand it seems no seller would rely solely on Amazon for distribution (lack of foothold of Amazon?); on the other hand Amazon decided to massively dispatch counterfeited products together with merchant-originated ones, casting a doubt on the brand and tainting all their providers together.
To date, it seems like retail remains the safest way to order an item...
I suspect that Best Buy makes insignificant margins on most cellphones, but makes it up on accessories (and I guess they sell carrier plans as well?).
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.
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...
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.
This is a young company with many great engineers and known for their efficiency
Maybe not (I actually think they do), but they are making money on phone-plus-services.
though it might work on majority of population without necessary skills to unlock bootloader, install recovery and ROM
but anyway outside China there are Google services even in Xiaomi phones, so their only advantage is in Chinese market where are dozens of app stores
It wasn't so much a matter of being "highly regarded" as it was being overly hyped. I am not sure if it was the media’s fault or Xiaomi’s own PR efforts, but the nonstop “Steve Jobs of China” headlines and fawning articles about the hardware and Miui were over the top. When Xiaomi was listed #2 in Technology Review’s “50 Smartest Companies” of 2015 (behind Tesla, 1) I was flabbergasted — yes, they are nice phones (we own a Hongmi and a another larger-screen phone whose name I can’t remember) but there are lots of problems with Xiaomi’s Android implementation, and the low-cost strategy is clearly not sustainable.
Design can only take you so far in the Android universe, as the HTC example demonstrates (2). Undercutting competitors on price is also not a long-term strategy.
1. https://www.technologyreview.com/lists/companies/2015/
2. http://www.recode.net/2016/4/12/11586042/htc-10-looks-to-mak...
I own a Mi4i, converted from a Nexus 5. My biggest worry was unfounded, I ended up loving MIUI. It is, in my opinion, way more usable than vanilla android and they seem to do significant updates once every few weeks. The design is very nice, its routinely assumed Im using a high-end smartphone. The screen is great, battery is ok (relative to the times), its occasionally laggy with lots of apps open but nothing that really annoys.
Of course the pricing is absolutely insane, cant comment on them as a business. Worth saying that while Im not an a typical user I would pay double the price before even considering another brand.
samsung is loaded with utter crap default apps. asus follows this path with so many uninstallable default crapps.
i never rooted my mis and always update community roms. the default crapps are minimal.
mi phones (and miui) are ways up from others. it takes effort not to notice. buy one, play with it a couple weeks, and u never want to use other android phones.
- A great body weight scale that I use almost everyday, for around 100 yuan (~14 dollars). Has Bluetooth and syncs with your phone. I bought a second one for my mom.
- Four air purifiers. 699 yuan each (~100 dollars). A third or a fourth the price of rivals from traditional home appliance makers. Two for me and two for my mom. They also have a great app that connects them to my phone. These are such great values that my friends and colleagues bought ~10 more in total based on my feedback. Given the terrible smog in Northern China it's no surprise they've been out of stock for weeks this winter.
- One 10,000mAh power brick for my wife. I think it was less than 15 dollars. Many of my friends use Xiaomi's battery pack too.
- Countless cheap Lightning cables.
In addition to these, I'm also planning to buy another two of their products for the coming Chinese New Year:
- A water purifier for 1999 yuan (~290 usd). Good design that let's you change filter without fuss. Also connects to phone.
- A robot vacuum for 1699 yuan (~250 usd). Two of my friends bought it and feedback has been positive. Also has an app, naturally.
- Another air purifier.
My point is that if you're a watcher of Xiaomi, you have to look beyond the phones.
If you look at all of their businesses most are either low margin or undifferentiated or both.
They have a big asset tied up in their patent portfolio. They need to make use of it, either defensively i.e. enter a western market, or as a platform to focus more of their efforts around fewer initiatives and become truly great at something that makes money. It's hard to be innovative at many things at once.
I can see why the parent company might want to slow down a bit..
i dropped my mi 1S on hard ground one year ago. the screen glass was torn, but not detached; however, the touch is not affected at all. the face camera still works but the pic is blurry due to torn glasses covering the face camera.
last week my 4yo son threw my wife's mi 2. screen torn (much worse than mine, but the scars do not cross important areas like front camera), touch ok, camera ok.
i asked her if she wants a new phone? she flatly said no. it still works great.
i had a chinese no name brand tablet. dropped wooden toy on it, screen torn, touch broke, 'mouse' jitters. luckily pointers still functions with normal mouse (use utb-otg) after detaching the touch sensor ribbon cable.
so yeah, xiao mi phones are robust and ours are 24/7 abused. they (mi 1s and mi 2s) still get great build even when the prices are just around $100. the second thing less abused in my house is my lenovo yoga (ultra-slim laptop). oh wait, probably the most abused is my cisco router.
we do have more high end phones like motorolla and asus; however, they are not used as much as the mis. not because they are more expensive so we care more. it's just painful to use say asus. it's power hungry, and data hungry, often betrayed us on critical moments. we just don't use it. the asus z5 is now used by my 4yo son to watch youtube.
on last note, we like that our mis do not have a brand printed facing us, unlike the ASUS or SAMSUNG. i never like printed brand on my personal stuffs just to show off. printed brands on inside, not to show off, are ok.
