Xiaomi Inc. (/ˈʃjaʊmi/, Chinese: 小米科技; pinyin: Xiǎomǐ Kējì, literally "millet technology") is a privately owned Chinese electronics company headquartered in Beijing, China, that is the world's 4th largest smartphone maker. Xiaomi designs, develops, and sells smartphones, mobile apps, and related consumer electronics.
Since the release of its first smartphone in August 2011, Xiaomi has gained market share in mainland China and expanded into developing a wider range of consumer electronics, including a smart home device ecosystem.
The company's founder and CEO is Lei Jun, China's 23rd richest person according to Forbes. The company sold over 60 million smartphones in 2014.
The company has over 8,000 employees, mainly in mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore, and is expanding to other countries such as India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Brazil.
According to IDC, Xiaomi is now the third largest smartphone maker in the world followed by Lenovo and LG at fourth and fifth place respectively. Samsung remains at the first place despite declining shipment volume, followed by Apple Inc.
at second place. Xiaomi also became the largest smartphone vendor in
China in 2014, having overtaken Samsung, according to an IDC report.
At the end of December 2014, Xiaomi became the world’s most valuable
technology start-up after it received US$1.1 billion funding from
investors, making Xiaomi's valuation more than US$46 billion. Xiaomi Entered the Indian market in July 2014 and since then has expanded rapidly in India. Earlier, Xiaomi used to sell exclusively on Flipkart until announced its partnership with both Amazon.com and Snapdeal
on April 7, 2015.This is seen as a bid by the smartphone manufacturer
to expand its retail base in India. It has also teamed up with Airtel
Store and The Mobile Store to sell some of its selected devices. Later,
in Q1 2015, It started its own store and also stopped selling its
accessories to and other online stores. On its first anniversary in India,
it launched its own Mi Store App. On August 11, 2015 it started it's
factory in Srinagar in North India to meet the high product demands.
Xiaomi was co-founded by eight partners on April 6, 2010. In the first round of funding, institutional investors included Temasek Holdings, a Singaporean government-owned investment vehicle, the Chinese venture capital funds IDG Capital and Qiming Venture Partners, and mobile processor developer Qualcomm. On August 16, 2010, Xiaomi officially launched its first Android-based firmware MIUI. The Xiaomi Mi1 smartphone was announced in August 2011. It was shipped with Xiaomi's MIUI firmware which is based on Android and resembles Samsung's TouchWiz and Apple's iOS. The device could also be equipped with stock Android.
In August 2012, Xiaomi announced the Xiaomi Mi2 smartphone. The phone was powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064, a 1.5 GHz quad-core Krait chip featuring with 2 GB of RAM and the Adreno 320 GPU. The company said on September 24, 2013 that the company had sold over 10 million Mi2 devices over the preceding 11 months. Mi-2 smartphones were sold by wireless phone vendor Mobicity in the United States, Europe, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. On September 5, 2013, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun officially announced plans to launch an Android-based 47-inch 3D-capable Smart TV, which will be assembled by Sony TV manufacturer Wistron Corporation of Taiwan. The company explained the choice as to take advantage of Wistron's skill as a supplier of Sony. In September 2013, Xiaomi announced its Mi3 phone, with a version powered by the Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974AB) and another by NVIDIA's Tegra 4 chipset. On September 25, 2013, Xiaomi announced plans to open its first ever service center in Beijing. By October 2013, Xiaomi was reported as the fifth most-used smartphone brand in China. In 2013, it sold 18.7 million smartphones. and 26.1 million smartphones in first half of 2014.
In 2014, Xiaomi announced its international expansion outside of China with their first stop in Singapore.
The international headquarters will also be set up in the city-state,
which will coordinate all activities including future product launches
in the region. Xiaomi's Redmi and Mi3 phone made their debuts in Singapore on February 21 and March 7 respectively. On March 7, Xiaomi Mi3 batches sold out within 2 minutes of the opening day sale in Singapore. Following Singapore, The company has already landed in Malaysia, Philippines and India, and also has plans to enter Indonesia, Thailand, Russia, Turkey, Brazil and Mexico in the following months. On March 17, 2014, RedMi Note (also known as HongMi Note is some Asian markets) was announced by Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun. The RedMi Note features a 5.5-inch HD display with OGS technology and an octa-core processor from MediaTek.
There are two variants of the RedMi Note, one with 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB
of internal storage; and the other with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of
internal storage. The phablet was made available for pre-order on March 19 exclusively through a mobile application from Tencent. In April 2014, Xiaomi purchased a new domain - mi.com for a record US$3.6 million.
Mi.com becomes the most expensive domain name ever bought in China as
confirmed by a senior executive of Xiaomi. Mi.com replaces xiaomi.com as
the official website domain of Xiaomi.
In Q2 2014, Xiaomi shipped 15 million devices or 14 percent of China's
market share and beats Samsung which shipped slightly more than 13
million. By July 2014, it had sold 57.36 million phones.
In November 2014, Xiaomi said it will invest US$1 billion in television
content building. The investment is aimed at enriching the company's
content and becoming a bellwether for the industry.
In December 2014, Xiaomi completed its latest round of equity financing led by Hong Kong-based technology fund All-Stars Investment Limited, a fund run by former Morgan Stanley analyst Richard Ji raising over US$1 billion proceeds with a valuation of more than US$45 billion, making it one of the most valuable private technology companies in the world.
In April 2015, Xiaomi announced it is making its Mi devices available through two of India's major e-commerce sites, and offline retailers for the first time. The company first entered India via an exclusive retail partnership with Flipkart.
On April 23, 2015, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun and VP Hugo Barra came together to announce a new flagship product named Mi 4i in India. Mi 4i became the first phone to be launched in India before anywhere else in the globe and is supposed to be inspired from Indian demand. Mi Band was also launched in the same event.
On June 30, 2015, Xiaomi announced its foray into Brazil with the launch of locally manufactured Redmi 2, the first time the company sells a smartphone outside Asia or assembles one outside of China.
History
In August 2012, Xiaomi announced the Xiaomi Mi2 smartphone. The phone was powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064, a 1.5 GHz quad-core Krait chip featuring with 2 GB of RAM and the Adreno 320 GPU. The company said on September 24, 2013 that the company had sold over 10 million Mi2 devices over the preceding 11 months. Mi-2 smartphones were sold by wireless phone vendor Mobicity in the United States, Europe, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. On September 5, 2013, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun officially announced plans to launch an Android-based 47-inch 3D-capable Smart TV, which will be assembled by Sony TV manufacturer Wistron Corporation of Taiwan. The company explained the choice as to take advantage of Wistron's skill as a supplier of Sony. In September 2013, Xiaomi announced its Mi3 phone, with a version powered by the Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974AB) and another by NVIDIA's Tegra 4 chipset. On September 25, 2013, Xiaomi announced plans to open its first ever service center in Beijing. By October 2013, Xiaomi was reported as the fifth most-used smartphone brand in China. In 2013, it sold 18.7 million smartphones. and 26.1 million smartphones in first half of 2014.
In December 2014, Xiaomi completed its latest round of equity financing led by Hong Kong-based technology fund All-Stars Investment Limited, a fund run by former Morgan Stanley analyst Richard Ji raising over US$1 billion proceeds with a valuation of more than US$45 billion, making it one of the most valuable private technology companies in the world.
In April 2015, Xiaomi announced it is making its Mi devices available through two of India's major e-commerce sites, and offline retailers for the first time. The company first entered India via an exclusive retail partnership with Flipkart.
On April 23, 2015, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun and VP Hugo Barra came together to announce a new flagship product named Mi 4i in India. Mi 4i became the first phone to be launched in India before anywhere else in the globe and is supposed to be inspired from Indian demand. Mi Band was also launched in the same event.
On June 30, 2015, Xiaomi announced its foray into Brazil with the launch of locally manufactured Redmi 2, the first time the company sells a smartphone outside Asia or assembles one outside of China.
Reference
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaomi
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