Xiaomi Tops Chinese Smartphone Market

[Froggy]

Mi 4i the "i" is for International? I doubt. Looking at spec and build quality and pricing i is more likely for bloody India.

 

[yellowarse]

Mi 4i the "i" is for International? I doubt. Looking at spec and build quality and pricing i is more likely for bloody India.

You're right. The Mi 4i was specifically produced for India. A slightly dumbed down (but still very good) version of the flagship Mi 4 – like what the iPhone 5c is to the 5s. And the 'i' is for India.

---

Xiaomi's next smartphone is the Mi 4i for India

A faster processor and a lower price are joined by a new plastic body

• By Kunal Dua
• on April 23, 2015 04:26 pm

Xiaomi unveiled the Mi 4i smartphone on Thursday in New Delhi, India — its first major launch event outside of its homeland China. "The 'i' stands for India," said Barra, while unveiling what the company is calling its new flagship for India. "Of course when I go to Indonesia, the 'i' will be for Indonesia," he said, before adding a half-hearted, "I'm just kidding."

All the elements you associate with a Xiaomi launch event were present: Hugo Barra on stage doing his best Steve Jobs impression, countless digs at Apple, hysterical "Mi fans" in attendance, constant comparisons in which the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus came out second best to the star of the show, and of course local as well as international tech media and bloggers in attendance. Did we mention the digs at Apple?

The Mi 4i isn't a radical departure from the Mi 4 in terms of design, but there are enough changes to make it perhaps the best-looking Xiaomi phone we've come across to date. The Mi 4’s metal frame has given way to a fully polycarbonate body, but the Mi 4i has more emphasized corners and an overall finish that's reminiscent of high-end Lumia devices. Most importantly, by pricing it at 12,999 rupees (about $205), Xiaomi has ensured it won't be repeating the mistakes it made with the Mi 4, which cost significantly more at launch.

The new phone is powered by a second-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 615, which offers some improvements over the previous generation chip, such as a faster speed. The octa-core processor now has four 1.7GHz cores to do the heavy lifting, while four more power-saving 1.1GHz cores handle background activities. Other specifications include a 5-inch 1080p display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, MiUi 6 based on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop, and a 3120mAh battery that's "designed to give one and a half days of real-world usage."

The 13-megapixel rear camera features improved HDR capabilities, and the 5-megapixel front camera comes with a "beautify" feature that purports to remove blemishes from your selfies. The frequency with which this feature is popping up on new smartphones sums up everything that's wrong with the world today.

XIAOMI MI 4I IMAGES

NextTwo features that Barra demonstrated while on stage captured our attention more than any others. The Mi 4i comes with what Xiaomi is calling a "Sunlight Display" that adjusts images to look good under all types of light. The demo video showed the phone — when exposed to a bright light — automatically adjust under- and over-exposed parts of the picture to give it a more consistent look. As soon as the light source was removed, the image went back to its original state. We are not sure how useful this will be beyond tricking people into thinking they are better photographers than they actually are, but we can't wait to test it and find out more about how it works.

VISUAL IVR AIMS TO DO FOR INTERACTIVE VOICE RESPONSE MENUS WHAT THE ORIGINAL IPHONE DID FOR VOICEMAIL

The other feature is Visual IVR. In name as well as function, Visual IVR aims to do for Interactive Voice Response menus what the original iPhone did for voicemail, though funnily enough, this was the one time when Barra didn't make any Apple references. If it works as advertised, you will no longer have to wait through a prerecorded 60-second spiel to learn that you have to press 9 to talk to a real human being — all options will be on your screen the moment you dial in. The technology behind this is as low-tech as it gets — Barra and company are planning to crowdsource the building of IVR trees for various services from the legions of fans the company has amassed.

With Mi fans outnumbering the press and other attendees at least three to one for this event, Barra needn't have worried about any of his jokes falling flat. Pretty much everything he said was greeted with enthusiasm, with the loudest cheers reserved for instances when the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus were featured in yet another unflattering comparison against the Mi 4i.

And if there's one thing we learned from the sea of people that rushed toward the stage to get their selfies with him, it's that Mi fans will always find time for Xiaomi.

 

[johnny333]

I'm going to transition to a cheaper pre-paid SIM card, so I will need a second phone.

Don't follow the market so have no idea what decent budget smartphone are available now Someone recommended Asus but I'm willing to consider anything Xiaomei or even a Samsung

Which brands & model should I check out

 

[Froggy]

I'm going to transition to a cheaper pre-paid SIM card, so I will need a second phone.

Don't follow the market so have no idea what decent budget smartphone are available now Someone recommended Asus but I'm willing to consider anything Xiaomei or even a Samsung

Which brands & model should I check out

Probably this Mi 4i as a second phone.

 

[yellowarse]

I'm going to transition to a cheaper pre-paid SIM card, so I will need a second phone.

Get a dual SIM phone. Both the Xiaomi Redmi 2 ($169) and Mi 4i ($279) are 4G with dual SIM card slots.

Xiaomi phones are budget-priced but specced at mid- to high-end levels.

 

[Cyrax]

Apple tops Xiaomi in China smartphone sales as iOS eats into Android’s lead

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 07 May, 2015, 4:04pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 07 May, 2015, 4:04pm

Wu Nan [email protected]

Apple's iPhones are drawing Chinese users away from Android devices, research finds. Photo: Imaginechina

Apple topped the Chinese smartphone market in the first quarter, helped by demand for the new iPhone 6, beating local rival Xiaomi in the latest sales numbers.

Kantar Worldpanel ComTech’s latest report gave the US tech giant a 26.1 per cent share of the Chinese smartphone market, 5.1 percentage points higher than Xiaomi.

“In the quarter, Apple represented 25 per cent of smartphone sales in urban China’s 2,000 to 4,000 yuan (US$320 to 640) monthly income bracket, a 10.1 percentage point increase from the same period in 2014,” the report said.

The figures confirm the importance to Apple of sales in China, which overtook the US to become the largest market for iPhones in the first quarter. Sales in China helped propel Apple’s first-quarter revenues to a record US$58 billion. Revenues in China alone grew 71 per cent in the quarter, the US company reported last month.

China's State Internet Information Office forecast that about 500 million Chinese, more than one third of the total population, will buy smartphones this year. The strong demand has prompted a number of companies to enter the market, including many from outside the traditional phone business.

Smartphone inventories reached 780 million units in China last year, increasing by 34.3 per cent over 2013, according to iResearch Consulting Group.

The Kantar report showed that the rise of Apple and its iOS operating system cut into the lead enjoyed by Android. The number of Android users in the quarter dropped 8 per cent from the same period a year earlier, while iOS users rose 9.2 per cent.

Among new users of iOS in the quarter, 45.6 per cent were previous Android users, the report said.

Of the smartphones sold in the quarter, 63.5 per cent were through China Mobile, 21 per cent China Unicom and 14.6 per cent China Telecom.

The three state-owned firms are in race to promote faster and cheaper mobile internet services. China’s premier, Li Keqiang, has publicly said that current internet charges are too high for ordinary Chinese.

 

[xpo2015]

Buy the MiNote it looks gorgeous!

 

[johnny333]

Get a dual SIM phone. Both the Xiaomi Redmi 2 ($169) and Mi 4i ($279) are 4G with dual SIM card slots.

Xiaomi phones are budget-priced but specced at mid- to high-end levels.

I was checking the prices http://list.qoo10.sg/ad?keyword=mi4&pricemin=100&bid=264515
Using the Xiaomi Mi4 prices you have sellers selling the same phone for $399 & $499.

With Xiaomi phones I get the impression that they have these time limited specials where the price is good only for a limited time. For people like me this is a turn off because I prefer to shop when I want something & not have to queue up on specific days when they decide to have a sale.

 

[Sideswipe]

I was checking the prices http://list.qoo10.sg/ad?keyword=mi4&pricemin=100&bid=264515
Using the Xiaomi Mi4 prices you have sellers selling the same phone for $399 & $499.

With Xiaomi phones I get the impression that they have these time limited specials where the price is good only for a limited time. For people like me this is a turn off because I prefer to shop when I want something & not have to queue up on specific days when they decide to have a sale.

the time sales discounts are good for certain items especially the handphones, it's usually $20-$30 or slightly higher off the usual pricing if you care about that sum of money. stocks are limited though for the popular items, you have to be very fast to get it when the sales start or else you would likely miss it. for more costly purchases, it is preferable to buy from a seller who has a physical shop, you can self-collect your item or you can go to the seller shop for an immediate return and exchange if the item is faulty upon receiving it by mail.

 

[yellowarse]

I was checking the prices http://list.qoo10.sg/ad?keyword=mi4&pricemin=100&bid=264515
Using the Xiaomi Mi4 prices you have sellers selling the same phone for $399 & $499.

Be careful. The $399 is 4G FDD for China, but not compatible with our 4G LTE system. The $499 is the export FDD-LTE 4G model.

Don't buy cellphones from Qoo10 – the vendors are Singaporean and their phones are overpriced.

I got my Mi 4 from AliExpress (free shipping to Singapore): http://www.aliexpress.com/store/pro...P-Screen-Qualcomm-Quad/311331_1967664571.html

 

[Froggy]

http://tech.firstpost.com/news-anal...inese-market-to-become-number-one-266868.html

Apple unseats Xiaomi in Chinese market to become number one
12 May 2015 , 10:00

Apple has for the first time overtaken Xiaomi to become the largest vendor of smartphones in China, one of the world’s biggest markets.

Apple grabbed 14.7% of market share in the first quarter of 2015, surpassing Xiaomi, which had a 13.7% share, according to market researcher the International Data Corporation (IDC).

The two companies were followed by state-owned Huawei, Samsung and Lenovo. Top spot in China’s smartphone market, which is one of the world’s biggest but also one of its most fiercely competitive, has been occupied by four different companies in the past five quarters.

Samsung and Lenovo have also topped the list. Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei, Samsung and Lenovo took up 57.8% of the market in the January-March period. While Apple, Xiaomi and Huawei saw shipments increase during this time, Samsung and Lenovo suffered substantial declines, according to the data.

A total of 98.8 million smartphones were shipped, 4.3% fewer than in the first quarter of 2014.

This was the first such drop in over six years, suggesting the market may be reaching saturation point after several quarters of over 20% growth.

The market entered a period of adjustment in the first quarter as companies’ inventories piled up due to intense competition, Wang Jiping, director of IDC’s China branch, was quoted by news portal Sina.com.

Reuters

 

[Froggy]

Unboxing MiPad a moment ago











Made my maid very happy today

 

[Froggy]

Unboxing my Mi4i









Nahbeh cheesepie - Xiaomi don't give adaptor


Its like you forgot to bring a condom till the last minute knn

 

[Froggy]

Finally. Ya not bad at all.

 

[Froggy]

Xiaomi Begins Selling Accessories (But Not Phones) in U.S., UK, France And Germany
Posted 20 hours ago by Jon Russell (@jonrussell)

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/18/xiaomi-mi-us-uk-france-germany/



Fast-growing Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has taken a tentative first step to becoming an international player after it opened the doors to its Mi.com online store in the U.S., UK, France and Germany.

The company has produced some of the best Android devices on the market, which retail for a fraction of the cost of Apple’s iPhone or Samsung’s Galaxy S series, but those are not available in the West right now. Instead, Mi.com is selling Xiaomi’s wide range of accessories, which include items such as its popular power packs, its Mi Band wearable, and impressive $79.99 Mi Headphones.



We can speculate why Xiaomi’s opening product roster doesn’t include smartphones like the Mi 4 or Mi 4 Note phablet (which we’re big fans of) — potential legal and patent issues with industry rivals spring to mind, although Xiaomi has pointed out that the popularity of carrier deals makes the U.S. and other Western markets tough — but either way this is a first step to internationalize its brand. (Xiaomi currently sells smartphones in 11 countries in Asia, including China and India.)

The Chinese firm is all too commonly associated with ‘ripping off’ Apple’s design, but that statement massively underestimates the innovation and thinking that goes into creating a device that competes with the best in the industry at just one-third of the pricepoint. (Plus, if you’ve played with a recent Xiaomi phone, you’ll quickly realize that it bears as much similarity to an iPhone as plenty of other touchscreen phones.)

If you live in the U.S., UK, France or Germany, you can now head to Mi.com to get a little insight into the fuss behind the company, which is valued at $45 billion and projected to ship 100 million smartphones this year.

 

[Froggy]

A report by CNN - http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/10/technology/xiaomi-store-hong-kong/


[video=youtube;bPBTC13QcbM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPBTC13QcbM[/video]
Xiaomi is way more than just a smartphone maker

Turns out Chinese tech upstart Xiaomi makes a heck of a lot more than its signature, low-cost smartphones



Founded just five years ago, the Beijing-based firm has already done battle with Samsung and Apple for the top spot in China's cutthroat smartphone market. Along the way, Xiaomi has cultivated a rabid fanbase known for its unyielding devotion. Some "Mi fans" get together to sing songs about the company, while others even shave the brand's logo into their hair.

Now, Xiaomi is going global, and the company is hoping to attract legions of new fans with a suite of products ranging from fitness trackers to GoPro-style cameras. It's also dabbling in retail, starting with a new concept store in Hong Kong called "Mi Home," the first of its kind outside mainland China.

"Xiaomi 'Mi Home' is really a customer experience store," said Zhang Jian Hui, a manager at Xiaomi. "It has three main purposes -- the first is to showcase all our new products, second is our after-sales, one-stop shop, and third is that it's a place for fans to mingle."

Customers walking through the doors get a big, warm welcome -- some even get pulled aside by sales staff to take selfies.

There are two mock living rooms, where customers can breathe air cleaned by a Xiaomi-branded purifier, play video games on a Xiaomi smart television and even weigh themselves on a Xiaomi scale, one of the many functions that link to its fitness tracker, the Mi Band. (The Mi Band goes for about $13, and is currently sold out.)

The shop, located on the 20th floor of an industrial building in Hong Kong, is dotted with plush versions of the oddly adorable Mi Bunny, and the shelves are stacked with photos of Xiaomi employees. In the back of the store, customers can browse the company's smartphones, tablets and phone accessories. Phone covers go for a few bucks while tablets sell for around $200.

Shoppers looking to take home Xiaomi items will be disappointed to learn that many of their flagship offerings aren't yet available outside mainland China. The priority of "Mi Home" remains customer service, not retail sales, Zhang said.

In general, the company still encourages people to buy online -- Xiaomi has always largely relied on word of mouth and web sales, a tactic that helps keeps costs low.

Xiaomi already operates 19 "Mi Home" locations inside China, and plans to open one in Taiwan this July. In Hong Kong, the newest "Mi Home" is already attracting customers from around the world.

"I saw their post on Facebook ... [and] we were just at a shopping mall two blocks away," said Pascal Ming, from Switzerland, who was in Hong Kong for his honeymoon. "Xiaomi is a rising brand in the Asia region, but not yet in Europe -- we don't have these products [so] I just wanted to see them, touch them."

Earlier this year, Xiaomi set a Guinness World Record for the most mobile phones sold in a 24-hour period.

The company made a whopping 2.08 billion yuan ($335 million) during its annual "Mi Fan Fest" promotion, selling 2.12 million smartphones, 770,000 smart appliances, 247,000 power strips, 208,000 fitness watches, 79,000 wi-fi units and 38,600 smart televisions, according to its official Twitter account.

Xiaomi has been called the Apple of China -- it's smartphones feel similar to iPhones, "Mi Home" looks like an Apple store, and its CEO Lei Jun even dons black turtlenecks and blue jeans during some events, similar to what Steve Jobs often wore for Apple product launches.

Mi fans in America can purchase various accessories such as headphones and portable gadget chargers on Xiaomi's online U.S. store, which launched earlier this month. No smartphones are available -- yet.

- CNN's Jonathan Stayton contributed to this report.

 

[Froggy]

http://venturebeat.com/2015/06/24/tesla-xiaomi-top-mits-list-of-worlds-smartest-companies/

Tesla, Xiaomi top MIT’s list of world’s smartest companies



The MIT Tech Review has compiled a list of the 50 “smartest” companies in the world. Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors tops the list, while the Chinese mobile and wearables upstart Xiaomi comes in second.

The Review gave Tesla props for its new line of batteries “in service of a big goal: remaking the energy grid for industry, utilities, and residences.”

Xiaomi gets credit for its growing line of affordable Android smartphones and tablets, as well as for its ecommerce business, which expanded into the U.S. this year.

A number of health-related companies found their way onto this year’s list.

The DNA analysis startup Counsyl comes in at No. 5 on the list. Counsyl’s “cheap, automated DNA analysis is expanding from prenatal testing to cancer screening,” the Review said.

AliveCore places 14th for its iPhone-connected heart monitoring devices. The mainly-phone-based telemedicine service Teledoc takes the No. 27 spot. Teledoc will IPO in early July.

Apple places No. 16 for its “well-designed” Apple Pay service. Microsoft takes No. 48 for its HoloLens augmented reality device.

 

[Sabra]

Attack of the clones: Xiaomi and Samsung biggest victims of China’s market for fake smartphones

PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 15 July, 2015, 8:00am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 15 July, 2015, 8:00am

​Zen Soo [email protected] @zensoo

Xiaomi's Mi 4i smartphone on display in Hong Kong in May. Antutu found that over a third of counterfeit smartphones using its site were imitation Xiaomi models. Photo: Dickson Lee

Counterfeit smartphones abound in China, and over half are pirated versions of models by South Korean electronics giant Samsung and China’s Xiaomi, according to a new report.

Xiaomi, China’s biggest smartphone maker, shot to fame by offering what critics call cheap clones of Apple’s iPhone. Now even the clones are being cloned.

When Chinese graduate student Mel Li’s iPhone 4S stopped working in January, she decided to buy a cheaper handset online to tide her over until she decided which smartphone to replace it with full-time.

The 27-year-old purchased an unbranded model that offered the same interface, operating system and appearance as a new Samsung smartphone, but at a fraction of the cost.

“It’s made exactly the same as the Samsung Galaxy Note 3,” said Li.

In its report, Antutu, a Chinese benchmarking app for smartphones, found that 31 per cent of around 10 million devices using its service were imitation Samsung models. Counterfeit Xiaomi smartphones made up 37 per cent of the total.

The Mi Note, Xiaomi’s latest phablet, retails for about half the cost of a similar-spec Samsung Galaxy Note 4. At the bottom end of the spectrum, Xiaomi’s Redmi 2A smartphone can be had in China for as little as US$80.

Among all smartphone brands, Samsung was the second hardest hit. Photo: Reuters

Aware of the prevalence of unlicensed copies in China, Xiaomi hosts a verification service on its website. This allows its customers to input their phone’s security code so they can check its authenticity.

A quick search on Google brings up scores of forum tutorials informing worried consumers on how best to verify the legitimacy of their handsets.

The news comes at a bad time for Samsung. Last week, it forecast that its operating profit would hit 6.9 trillion won (US$6.1 billion) for the April-June period, down 4 per cent from the corresponding period in 2014.

This marks the seventh consecutive quarterly slide for the South Korean tech giant. Pundits point to poor sales of its Galaxy S6, the latest update to its flagship smartphone series.

Xiaomi has also taken a hit. In the first half of 2015 it posted slower than expected growth of 33 per cent. In contrast, its handset shipments jumped 227 per cent for the whole of 2014, with revenue soaring 135 per cent.

The Chinese smartphone market contracted for the first time in six years in the first quarter of 2015, with shipments falling 4 per cent year-on-year, according to a survey by market research firm International Data Corp.

Antutu’s report showed that 4 per cent of the smartphones using its service were counterfeit Huawei handsets, and 2 per cent were fake HTC models. Huawei is Chinese and HTC is based in Taiwan.

It did not reveal any statistics about Apple’s iPhone as the survey focused on Android models.

Apple was the top smartphone seller in China in the first quarter of this year, Xiaomi was second and Huawei third, IDC reported.

 

[yellowarse]

Xiaomi success inspires every man and his dog to make smartphones in China

HONG KONG/BEIJING | BY YIMOU LEE AND PAUL CARSTEN

The call of the world's biggest smartphone market is proving irresistible for entrepreneurs in China, where even purveyors of concrete mixers, refrigerators and rock music are mimicking local trailblazer Xiaomi Inc [XTC.UL] with their own handsets.

But the market shrank in early 2015 for the first time in six years and sales have fallen at one-time leader Xiaomi. That sudden about-turn raises questions over whether there is any chance for the likes of construction machinery maker SANY Group Co Ltd [SANYG.UL], Gree Electric Appliances Inc of Zhuhai and veteran rockstar Cui Jian.

The slowdown may be too much for all but the largest handset makers, much less a plethora of me-toos, some analysts say. In a crowded market plagued by price wars, entrants will have to convince buyers to abandon established brands with phones that surpass even premium models, U.S. research firm Gartner said.

"It's not that easy to go bankrupt making phones, but it's also not easy to be profitable," said Taiwan-based Gartner analyst CK Lu, who covers the mainland smartphone market. "If you don't have good differentiation, you're putting yourself in a saturated market."

China had 155 smartphone brands selling over 1,000 handsets a month as at end-March, from 110 two years ago, said analyst Neil Shah of Counterpoint Research. In neighboring India, there were 103 brands, over half of which are Chinese.

But small players compete for just one-fifth of the market as the rest is occupied by the 10 biggest incumbents - including Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Lenovo Group, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL] and Xiaomi - according to Gartner.

FAIRY TALE

Bringing a smartphone to market in China costs as little as a few hundred thousand dollars, with money going on licensing and off-the-shelf designs from manufacturers. For greater scale, involvement in design, marketing and offline sales distribution send costs into the hundreds of millions of dollars, said Shah.

Few entrants are likely to last without mass sales, like Xiaomi, or other businesses to support money-losing smartphone divisions, like Lenovo. Their best chance is to link handsets to new sectors such as wearable devices and smart home appliances, analysts said.

But new hopefuls are lured to the market by the fairy tale success of Xiaomi. In December, investors valued Xiaomi at $45 billion less than five years after its founding, making the firm one of the world's most valuable startups.

Chinese startup Smartisan was established in 2012 and, like Xiaomi, has gained popularity based primarily on social-media marketing and word of mouth, rather than expensive advertising.

"Xiaomi's phones were definitely already successful (in 2012)," a Smartisan spokeswoman said in an email. "Because of that, getting investment and bringing in talent for smartphones became much easier... Before Xiaomi, this would have been very difficult."

ATTACK OF THE CLONES

Xiaomi, whose sales are mostly domestic, saw phone shipments rocket 227 percent last year. But the firm's fortunes wavered last week when it reported semi-annual sales that for the first time were lower than the previous six months.

The decline came after researcher IDC in May said smartphone shipments in China fell in the first quarter for the first time in six years, by 4.3 percent, due to "market saturation".

"You have so many new things, so much noise, so many new brands coming all the time," said Dan Dery, chief marketing officer of Alcatel OneTouch, part of Chinese smartphone maker TCL Communication Technology Holdings Ltd.

"I see a lot of our competitors trying to replicate Xiaomi just by putting a cheap phone online," he said.

A case in point is ShenQi, a smartphone firm started in April by current world No. 3 Lenovo. Like Xiaomi, its remit is to sell high-quality handsets over the Internet, touting software specially designed for a heavy-user target audience.

"Xiaomi does so many products now," Chen Xudong, then-head of ShenQi and now President of Lenovo Mobile Group, said in a May interview. Xiaomi has expanded from an exclusively online smartphone vendor to make other consumer electronics and home appliances.

"It's not the same experience as when they launched," he said. "A lot of companies when they grow up, they'll probably change their strategy. That's the key reason we (ShenQi) still have an opportunity."

Rather than copying Xiaomi's original model, China research director Nicole Peng of Canalys said entrants' opportunities lie in making wearables and smart appliances as well as smartphones - akin to Xiaomi's current strategy.

"I think no more than three new brands can be commercially successful in the short term, any others will only acquire a tiny portion of the market," said Peng. "But if they want to be profitable just selling phones, the chances are very, very low."

(Additional reporting by Gerry Shih and SHANGHAI and HONG KONG Newsrooms; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

 

[Froggy]

[video=youtube;nuGLoZ1iUOU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuGLoZ1iUOU[/video]
​