Looking for the best gadgets at a reasonable price is all that a person looks for in the market, and a company that satisfies their need will take over the market needs and be the king in the market. Today, in this article, we will share the success story of such a king, ‘Xiaomi.’.
Xiaomi entered the smartphone manufacturing market in 2010 and earned the name of the number one smartphone maker in India. The Chinese-based tech pioneer company has a presence in almost 100 countries and is known for manufacturing different electronic gadgets and machines.
Source: Google Images
Yes, we are talking about the world’s most valued startup in 2014, revolutionizing the smartphone industry by providing the greatest features in the average price segment. This brand does not require any introduction, but we have some unique insights into the company, as you can find Xiaomi’s success story and other important facts.
Xiaomi Introduction
Xiaomi is an electronics company based in Beijing and owned and founded by Lei Jun in April 2010. It became the biggest mobile seller by unit in 2014 in China. By now, it ranks within the top five in this country as one of its biggest smartphone-selling brands. The different lines in the series include Mi, Mi Note, Mi Max, Mi Mix, Mi Notebook, Redmi, Black Shark, and Pocophone.
Source: Google Images
Roughly, there are nearly 291.6 million active users of updates and MIUI operating systems. Xiaomi is not only skilled in mobile phone making but also involved in different manufacturing, like laptops, mobile apps, house appliances, wearables, accessories, electric cars, and other smart devices. The company also gives its products in lifestyle, such as glasses, caps, bags, lunch bags, pillows, cups, screwdrivers, filters, umbrellas, and more.
In 2018, Xiaomi became the first company to launch MI credit in India, which facilitated personal loans without much hassle. Other internet services that the company has apart from lending services are ‘Mi Music,’ ‘Mi Video,’ and ‘Mi Game.’.
Xiaomi Founders and Owners
Lei Jun is the founder, CEO, and president of Xiaomi, who laid down the foundation, and the other co-founders are Lin Bin, Dr. Zhou Guangping, Liu De, Li Wanqiang, Wong Kong-Kat, Hong Feng, and Chuan Wang. We will give detailed information about each prominent and key person involved with the Xiaomi company.
Source: Google Images
Lei Jun- Founder of Xiaomi
He is a founder of this tech brand and is a graduate of the computer stream from Wuhan University. He entered this company in 1992 as an engineer; in 1998, he became the CEO of Kingsoft. But then in December 2007, he finally resigned from that company due to health problems. During this time with Kingsoft, he also created an online bookstore called Joyo.com, which was purchased by Amazon.com in 2004.
He became an angel investor and invested in over 20 companies after leaving Kingsoft. He still plays the role of investor in various companies through Shunwei Capital. In 2008, he became chairman of UC Web, and in 2010 he founded Xiaomi.
Lin Bin: Xiaomi Co-Founder and President
He is a tech genius and skilled engineer in radio electronics who also holds great experience working in many prominent companies, including ADP, Microsoft, and Google. Apart from being a key figure in Xiaomi, he is also a member of the board of advisors of Tufts University School of Engineering located in Boston (USA).
Dr. Zhou Guangping
Previously worked at Motorola and, while there, held numerous positions in the company that have contributed to his experience. Dr. Zhou is now the director of hardware and BSP teams at Xiaomi and holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering.
Liu De
He graduated with a master’s in Industrial Design. He is the authority on the subject. He established the Department of Industrial Design at the University of Science and Technology, Beijing. Liu De was the one who founded an industrial design enterprise, “New Edge,” in 2003. Currently, he is the director of industrial design and ecosystem development teams for Xiaomi.
Li Wanqiang
At present, Li Wanqiang is one of the pioneering UI and HCI experts in China whose career has turned 180 degrees after attaining an industrial engineering degree in 2000. Following his graduation from the course, he took up a joint job at Kingsoft, where he undertook several high-profile and major software engineering projects. In the year 2010, Wanqiang became one of the co-founders of Xiaomi.
Xiaomi co-founder Chuan Wang
Chuan Wang, one of the co-founders of Xiaomi, is an entrepreneur with a long and rich history. In 1997, he founded Thunderstone Technology, which quickly established itself as the largest provider of Video on Demand (VOD) systems in China. In 2007, Wang established another company, Beijing Duokan Technology, a digital book company where he serves as CEO. In 2012, he took a place at Xiaomi as one of its co-founders and vice president; he presently heads the two teams of Mi TV and Mi Box at the company.
History of Xiaomi
Founded by Lei Jun in 2010, Xiaomi is a software company that primarily develops the MIUI ROM on Google’s Android platform. In other terms, the MIUI had been aimed at providing a far better user interface with various features than found on Android. It has seen a large acceptance, and as of March 2020, MIUI had accumulated 330.7 million Monthly Active Users (MAU) worldwide.
Source: Google Images
In 2011, Xiaomi entered hardware with the launch of the Mi One smartphone. Their thinking was to manufacture high-quality hardware at lower prices than competitors to eventually make money through services and content. Xiaomi’s collection of sales may now have grown beyond mobile, selling all kinds of products such as mobile apps, wearables, household appliances, and smart-home devices.
Xiaomi: Funding and Investors
This company went public in 2018, and it has collectively funded approximately $7.4 billion over 15 different funding rounds. Here is the table containing all the funding rounds, including the important dates and statistics.
DATE | STAGE | AMOUNT | INVESTORS |
December 2, 2020 | Post-IPO Debt | $855M | – |
December 2, 2020 | Post-IPO Equity | $3.1B | – |
April 2018 | Secondary Market | $800K | Qualcomm Ventures |
July 28, 2017 | Debt Financing | $1B | Morgan Stanely, Deutsche bank, NGP Capital |
March 1, 2016 | Secondary Market | – | – |
April 27, 2015 | Funding Round | – | Ratan Tata,DST Global,HOPU Fund,GIC,All-Stars Investment,YunFeng Capital |
December 22, 2014 | Series E | $1.1B | – |
October 29, 2014 | Debt Financing | $1B | Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase |
August 22, 2013 | Series D | – | DST Global |
June 2012 | Series C | – | Morningside Venture Capital |
June 2012 | Series C | $216M | Morningside Group |
December 2011 | Series B | $90M | IDG Capital, Shunwei Capital, Morningside Venture Capital |
December 2010 | Series A | $41 Million | – |
Competitors of Xiaomi
Samsung Electronics, Apple, Huawei, OnePlus, and Oppo are other big companies giving a tough fight to Xiaomi. The company is keeping up with all the giants while regularly updating, continually optimizing service and marketing, and keeping prices cheap. Apple and Samsung provide phones with great quality, but then they will leave a big dent in your pocket; however, Xiaomi provides more features than the aforementioned brands at a much lower price.
As an example, these Redmi smartphones range from 6000 rupees to over a thousand on Amazon, keeping Xiaomi not out of the competition when it comes to shipment rankings for smartphones in India. Realme, Oppo’s child brand, is currently gaining a lot of consumer interest in India with almost the same smartphone quality as Xiaomi. This is how the fight has become more intense between Xiaomi and Realme. What’s more, Motorola and Samsung are increasing competition. The former focuses on value for money but does not compromise on the essential specifications in the latter’s M series.
Revenue Model of Xiaomi
The main sources of Xiaomi’s sales are smartphones, the Internet of Things, and lifestyle products, as well as Internet services with other minor and assorted offerings.
Smartphones constitute most of Xiaomi’s income. In 2018, the company sold around 119 million smartphones. About one-fourth of the business revenue comes from IoT and lifestyle products. Xiaomi sells a lot more IoT-enabled devices like smart TVs, electric scooters, vacuum cleaners, cameras, and rearview mirrors.
As far as internet service is concerned, preinstalled applications and services contribute more to Xiaomi’s revenue. And in terms of generating monthly income streams, TV shows, movies, and games are provided along with it. Advertising also becomes the source of the income generated.
Growth and Revenue of Xiaomi
Xiaomi has witnessed tremendous growth in both sales and products and has about 22,074 employees globally.
Despite the adverse effects of the pandemic in the first quarter of 2020, Xiaomi was the only one among the top 5 smartphone brands that saw strong sales during that time. The company maintained an increase of 1.4% year over year during the abstract period of the first quarter of 2020.
According to reports, the entire revenue collection of Xiaomi was around 205.84 billion RMB in 2019, along with a gross profit of about 28.55 billion RMB. The revenue of this company, Xiaomi, surged in the fourth quarter of 2019 by 27.1%, which means around 56.5 billion RMB. The net profit of the company in this very quarter reached RMB 2.3 billion, which reflected an increase of 26.5% when compared to figures of the same quarter in 2018.
Future Plans of Xiaomi
The slogan “Innovation for Everyone” succinctly expresses Xiaomi’s vision: to offer advanced technology to everyone. They sell high-quality products and make provision for exceptional services to their consumers.
In 2020, Xiaomi pushed a huge standard in the form of advances in its line of 5G smartphones—an investment meant to improve its presence in the premium smartphone segment, further expanding towards the focus areas of AIoT (Artificial Intelligence of Things) going forward.
Despite growing opposition to Chinese products by the Indian government and people, Manu Jain, head of Xiaomi in India, is positive about the company’s future in the country.
Conclusion
Xiaomi is a tech pioneer company that holds a major part of the contribution of tech gadgets in different countries of the world, and smartphone manufacturing is the key factor for its success. This company is a Chinese-based tech company but has been a part of the tech world in different countries, which shows a good international relation for its technical advancement.