Xiaomi company: the fast track to success. Xiaomi: a story of rapid development

The Xiaomi Global Community is a place where Xiaomi fans can ask questions and find answers to them, discuss the products of the Xiaomi ecosystem and get the latest news about the company and partners. The Xiaomi community is your daily source of information on all the things that Xiaomi produces (Mi, MIUI and the ecosystem). Follow the various topics for information on updates, press releases, or launch announcements. And most importantly, interact with fans like you, share your experience with Xiaomi and explore the stories of others.

Although the community is called Xiaomi, it is fully curated by Mi fans. The goal of the Xiaomi Global Community was to create a space where Mi fans can feel comfortable at home, meet new friends, post reviews and reviews, and just have fun!

Some of you are also spending time on Global MIUI and we are very happy about that! And for many, a site dedicated to MIUI, which contains the latest firmware, programs and manuals, will still come in handy in the future.

The Xiaomi community website is a lively and friendly place for Mi fans to have a good time and chat about almost anything.

Free access to first-hand information about Xiaomi and its ecosystem partners is not the only benefit of the Xiaomi community. You can also receive invitations to product launch events or Xiaomi / Mi Ecosystem store opening parties, win gifts, and more.

Xiaomi Global Community Support Team!

Xiaomi Tech is a fast growing company producing portable electronic devices and smart home appliances. The company has its own research and production facilities in the industrial cluster of Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

Mi logo

“MI” in the logo means “Mobile Internet”, but there is also another meaning - “Mission Impossible”, “mission impossible”, because Xiaomi had so many trials that seemed insurmountable at the beginning.

High-quality technologies are now available to everyone

Xiaomi was founded in 2010 by entrepreneur Lei Jun, who believed that high-quality technology shouldn't cost a fortune. The company has created wonderful hardware, software and internet services for and with direct help from Mi fans. Feedback is very important for the company. The product range currently includes Mi Max, Mi 5, Mi Note, Mi TV, Mi Band and many more accessories. With over 61 million gadgets sold in 2014, successfully launching sales in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, India, Indonesia, Brazil and other countries, Xiaomi is expanding its presence around the world to become a global brand.

Corporate culture

Everything for the fans is what Xiaomi believes in. Loyal fans support and guide the company along the way. In fact, many of Xiaomi's current employees used to be just fans of Xiaomi.

The team is united by tirelessness, striving for excellence, and the desire to create a product of the highest quality for maximum user convenience. Constant innovation and testing of new ideas are aimed at expanding our own boundaries. Belief in innovation and fan support are the driving force behind new and unique products.

Lei Jun is a billionaire co-founder of the company, currently the current CEO, owns over 30% of Xiaomi Tech.

To reduce operating costs, the company advertises its products through microblogging, social media, and meetings with like-minded people and stakeholders. However, in 2013, the company opened its own offline stores in Beijing and Zhuhai, where you can buy Xiaomi products.

Phones made in China are so popular that manufacturers have fallen prey to counterfeiting. Selling the smartphones that the company provides on its website is a matter of minutes. Sales in the Chinese market are also impressive. Xiaomi estimates that 20 million fans download up to 5 million apps daily from the company's online store.

The Xiaomi Tech team already has two significant former Google employees.

The history of any company can be described in a wave-like graph: each brand experiences ups and downs, it may be on the verge of oblivion, or it will not leave the pages of business magazines for years. The brand, which we will talk about today, has managed to turn the technology market for everything in four years... In 2010, a company was registered in China Xiaomi.

One head is good, but eight ...

One of the key figures in the life of Xiomi and its CEO Lei Jun, eight years (1992 - 2000) worked in Kingston Technology Company, where he went from an ordinary engineer to the president of the company. It was thanks to his work at Kingston that the future founder of the "Grain of Rice" (this is how the name of the company Xiaomi is literally translated) gained experience in porting and working with applications.

Throughout his life, Lay was interested in various technology startups and in every possible way sought to invest in really interesting projects. Support for startups such as: online store Vancl.com, the popular mobile browser UCWEB, video service yy.com and an online store selling books JOYO brought "business angel" Lei Jun a really impressive profit. Lei was on the list of billionaires even before Xiaomi was founded.

In April 2010, about 1.5 years have passed since the release of the first version of the mobile operating system. Android... Calling it perfect would hardly have turned the language and it was clear that the user wanted more. And while Google developers were slowly fixing bugs and errors in the program code, April 6, 2010 in China eight founding fans mobile technologies, Internet and Android OS, led by Lei Jun, register the company Xiaomi Tech.

Each of the "eight that turned the world" was familiar with the program code and software development firsthand:

• Hong Feng- the head of Google China;
• Hugo barra- Vice President of Android OS Development;
• Bin ling- worked for Microsoft and Google (chief engineer);
• Andy Rubin- a native of Silicon Valley;
• Jiangji Guang- worked at Microsoft China;
• Guangping Jow- Head of the Motorolla division in China.

For several months, Lei Jun and Bing Ling discussed mobile trends for days.

Bing Ling: “Almost every weekend from early morning until late at night, Lay and I discussed our ideas and vision of what the perfect smartphone's operating system should be. It was a real passion for good software and daring, practical ideas. Regardless, I was still afraid to quit my job at Google. On January 12, 2010 Google announced its readiness to leave the Chinese market - it was a real call to action "

The loud announcement of the search giant Google was seen as a challenge and as an alternative to Android's clunky interface, the newly registered Xiaomi Tech company is hesitant to give its answer.

MIUI: the beginning

In 2010, the first version of the mobile operating system MIUI... At first glance, the abbreviation, which is difficult to read, is an abbreviation of English pronouns: Me, You, I - "I, you, me"... And the choice of such a name is not accidental - already the first version of MIUI OS turned out to be incredibly friendly and understandable to the end user. But its main feature is stable and trouble-free operation.

As a distribution strategy for the new OS, the founder of Xiaomi chose availability for any smartphones, without binding to smartphones of our own production.

Word of mouth, forums and rave reviews from users on social networks led to the fact that after three years the audience of the MIUI operating system exceeded the mark in 30 million.

The era of Xiaomi devices

The originality of Xiaomi is that its first product was not a specific device, but an operating system. Into the hands of users the first material brainchild of the company in the form of a smartphone Xiaomi Mi One will only get summer 2011... On August 18, an inexpensive but productive phone was announced, running Android OS and MIUI proprietary shell.

Xiaomi Mi One

Release date: August 18, 2011
Price: $310
OS: Android 4.1 MIUI
Screen:
CPU: 2-Core QS 1.5 GHz
RAM: 1 GB
Flash memory: 4 GB
Battery: 1930 mAh.
Camera: 8 megapixels

Price in $310 , reliability, user-friendly interface and similarity to the popular but unavailable iPhone in China make a real sensation for the Chinese consumer market.

Exactly one year later, Lei Jun pleases fans with the announcement of a new version of the smartphone - Xiaomi Mi Two.

Xiaomi Mi Two

Release date: 16 Aug 2012
Price:$ 315 (16GB model)
OS: Android 4.4 MIUI
Screen: 4.3 ”IPS 1280 × 720 (341 ppi)
CPU: 4-Core QS 1.5 GHz
RAM: 2 GB
Flash memory: 16 GB
Battery: 2000/3000 mAh.
Camera: 8 megapixels

More powerful processor Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 (4-Core 1.5 GHz), graphics core Adreno 320 and 2 GB RAM were able to lay on the blades all smartphones under the Android OS, announced in the first half of 2012.

The overwhelming success was not long in coming. Xiaomi Mi Two receives the status of “the great Chinese smartphone” (Forbes), and in two years the company sells more than 25 million devices.

Continuing the tradition of creating affordable smartphones with impressive performance, the executive leadership of Xiaomi Tech is determined to conquer a specific Indian market. In the land of "gold ants" there are many brands that we are unlikely to ever hear about. Most smartphones are indeed available to the average consumer, but such affordability tends to come at the expense of performance. The decisive role in saturating the Indian market with "sane" smartphones was taken over by Xiaomi, presenting the following smartphone model - Xiaomi Mi 3.

Xiaomi Mi 3

Release date: 16 Aug 2013
Price:$ 300 (16GB model)
OS: Android 4.3 MIUI 5.0
Screen: 5 "IPS 1920 × 1080 (441 ppi)
CPU: 4-Core QS 2.3 GHz
RAM: 2 GB
Flash memory: 16, 32, 64GB
Battery: 3050 mAh.
Camera: 13 megapixels

With the release of this smartphone, the myth that "everything Chinese is of low quality" was dispelled. Total in 40 minutes from the shelves of the Indian online store Flipkart the Xiaomi Mi 3 line has been sold out.

But record sales of new items are only one side of the coin. The Xiaomi Mi-3 smartphone has become the key model and hallmark of the young Chinese manufacturer, making it a serious player in the global market and giving a lot of headaches to the marketing strategy of such giants as Apple and Samsung. Worthy 5-inch Full HD - screen, good 13 megapixel camera, productive quad-core processor with a frequency of 2.3 GHz and attractive design for humane $300 - all these characteristics really forced the buyer to reconsider their attitude towards “established brands” and look at the product of a young Chinese company without contempt.

Having tasted the fruit of success, Xiaomi Tech, led by Lei Jun, has been working on the next generation of smartphone for a year. Meanwhile, the exponentially growing number of Mi owners is waiting for a new class of devices from the company - tablets. Heated the market, in August 2014 along with the logical link in the evolution of smartphones Xiaomi Mi 4 Lei Jun unveils the company's first tablet.

Are you looking for a Retina screen running Android? Looking for a powerful, productive tablet that can handle both office documents and games, but still fits in the pocket of a doctor's gown? After all, are you looking for an iPad mini alternative? The answer to all these requests was a tablet. Xiaomi MiPad.

The novelty opens a new page in the history of the Chinese brand, and a few months later an updated smartphone breaks into the market Xiaomi Mi 4, who set a new record in the life of the company.

Xiaomi Mi 4

Release date: July 22, 2014
Price:$ 320 (16GB model)
OS: Android 4.4 MIUI 5.0
Screen: 5 "IPS 1920 × 1080 (441 ppi)
CPU: 4-Core QS 2.5 GHz
RAM: 3 GB
Flash memory: 16, 32, 64GB
Battery: 3080 mAh.
Camera: 13 megapixels

While critics and snobs blamed the young Chinese manufacturer for plagiarism and infringement of Apple's design, in 37 seconds after the official start of sales of Xiaomi Mi 4 smartphones simply ended. Increased productivity, a designer diet (thinner than its predecessor) and an impressive screen were offered at an almost unchanged price tag in $320 .

To understand how a young and little-known company, which began its rapid development path in an ocean teeming with venerable business sharks, managed to bypass the South Korean giant Samsung in sales of smartphones in just 4 years ( 15 million devices sold for Q2 2014 from Xiaomi against 13.4 million Samsung in China) is not easy. But like everything ingenious, the success of the secret of the "Grain of Rice" is quite simple.

Xiaomi's strategy differs from a number of "colleagues" in the mobile technology market. During the first two years after the release of the first smartphone Xiaomi Mi One, the Chinese brand sold smartphones at a price that differs from the cost of devices by only 20-30 dollars... As the main source of profit, the administration chose not the hardware product itself, but the accompanying digital component.

• The price is almost equal to the cost price. Own store of applications and games, as well as additional optional functions for smartphones bring in significantly more profit than direct sales of the terminals themselves. In the first quarter of this year, another source of profit was opened in the United States - the online Xiaomi accessories store.
• Availability. Xiaomi is always open to communication with an ordinary user, and for those who have become a loyal fan of the brand, there is an opportunity to purchase new products in the forefront.
• User = PR manager. Theoretically, today Xiaomi does not need a forced self-promotion of a new product being prepared for release. This work is done for her by dedicated users of social networks and microblogging services. Confirmation of this is the 50 thousand sold Xiaomi Mi 2 smartphones in the network Sina Weibo in just five minutes.
• Regular support. If we take into account the fact that at the beginning of the development of Xiaomi there was exactly an operating system, then after four years of existence, Lei Jun remained faithful to this landmark. Each user receives an update of the most current firmware, regardless of whether he is the developer or the owner of an archaic device model.
• Hard work. The generally accepted 40-hour workweek for company founder Lei Jun is more of a nonsense. The 45-year-old billionaire still works no less than 100 hours a week... We can observe the result of such work on the rapid growth of Xiaomi shares.

Often, the Chinese brand Xiaomi is compared with the American company Apple, and Lei Jun is called the Chinese Steve Jobs. It is hardly worth denying such a similarity, but such a similarity can be perceived not only from the point of view of direct borrowing, but also from the side of the Chinese response to American arguments.

Oppo, Vivo, not just a lot, but a lot. Manufacturers from the Celestial Empire played out in earnest, arranging powerful competition in the world market. They overshadow the low-cost products of the more famous brands, but many still mistrust the Made in China label. It doesn't matter to dispel (or confirm) the doubts of those who have not yet bought a phone from Chinese brands - Xiaomi or someone else - we will try in this article. It will be about the aforementioned company, although much of what has been said (for example, reviews) can be applied to other manufacturers from China.

Xiaomi - how to pronounce it correctly?

Many who come across the company's products for the first time, or read about them in the news, do not know how to pronounce Xiaomi correctly. Well, it's unusual for a Russian person to see this X (there is no analogue in our alphabet at all), and even in the company of three vowels in a row - and nothing can be done about it. Therefore, a small educational program is needed on how to pronounce Xiaomi correctly, to read this name.

The Chinese language differs from Russian, first of all, in that each hieroglyph does not mean a separate sound, but a whole syllable or a short word. For example, Xiaomi is originally spelled like 小米. The first hieroglyph means "small" and, in combination with a noun, indicates the size of the object, age, or origin (猫 - cat, 小猫 - kitten, since "little cat", "baby cat"). The hieroglyph 米 means "rice" in translation, and the combination 小米 means "small rice", "rice seed", in literal translation - "grain of rice".

For the transmission of hieroglyphs using the Latin alphabet, the Pinyin standard is adopted in China. According to him, 小 is spelled as xiao, and 米 is mi. To transliterate the pinyin into the Cyrillic alphabet, in the 19th century, a Russian priest, Fr. Palladium, who preached Christianity in China, invented a transliteration system that is named after him. Linguists still use this standard. According to him, Xiao in Cyrillic is written as Xiao, and Mi - Mi. That is, correctly write Xiaomi in Russian - Xiaomi(all kinds of Xiomi, Xiaomi, Jiaomi, Xaomi, Tsaomi, Haomi, Hyaomi, etc. are a mistake).

As for how to pronounce Xiaomi correctly, it's a little more complicated. The Chinese language is not Russian, differing only in the dialects of the Kuban, the Volga region, the Moscow region, Siberia, where individual vowels can be pronounced slightly differently. A Russian will understand a Bulgarian or a Pole faster than a Chinese from the southeast - a Chinese from the north of the Middle Kingdom. Therefore, the pronunciation of the 小米 hieroglyphs varies from almost pure [s'aomi] to [sh'aomi] or even [shyaomi]. You can pronounce it according to the principle "as you hear it, so it is written," but you can try to imitate the Chinese.

Xiaomi - brand history

Xiaomi is a brand of 小米 科技 (Xiaomi Keji) company founded in 2010. Its origins were Chinese IT specialist and entrepreneur Lei Jun, who, together with partners, opened a new business. Initially, the company was engaged in the development of the MIUI operating system, an Android modification focused on creating an infrastructure similar to Apple. A year and a half later, in the fall of 2011, the company released its first smartphone Xiaomi Mi1, which received warm reviews from the Chinese. A year later, its successor Mi2 was introduced, which was bought by more than 11 million people in a year (10 times more than the first iPhone, as much as the iPhone 3G in history). In addition to sales, the company has in common with Apple the fact that Xiaomi products are being assembled by the same Foxconn.

In 2013, Xiaomi introduced the Mi3 model, and also announced the entry into the market of TVs and other devices. At the same time, the company's strategy was announced, designed to ensure its high competitiveness. It is based on savings on associated costs (for example, Xiaomi does not have a large retail chain of stores, like Apple or Samsung), a minimum margin (selling pipes at almost cost price) and earnings on auxiliary services (like space in cloud storage). Thus, Xiaomi, whose brand has gained fame outside of China, secured itself a rapid growth in sales.

In 2014, the budget series of Redmi smartphones was launched, significantly expanding the company's audience. If the flagship Mi smartphones are "the same as others, but much cheaper", those Redmi line is "for the same money, but much better." If the conventional Xiaomi Mi5 has the same capabilities as the HTC 10 or iPhone 6s, then something like the Redmi Note 3 is a device at the price of a budget, but with the characteristics of a solid mid-range. Thanks to the release of the second and third generations of Redmi in 2015-2016, sales of devices in the series exceeded 100 million units in the summer of 2016. That's more than LG and HTC combined over the same period.

In addition to smartphones, the company currently produces tablets, laptops, TVs, headphones, portable batteries, fitness trackers, routers, rice cookers, cameras, acoustics, bicycles and other equipment. Xiaomi has very serious ambitions, the head has repeatedly announced plans to become the number 1 smartphone manufacturer in the world. Soon the question: "Xiaomi - what brand?" can disappear by itself, as now they do not ask this about Samsung or Apple.

Reviews of smartphones about Xiaomi

Like any other phone from Chinese brands, Xiaomi has received mixed reviews. On the one hand, there is a tempting low price, and on the other hand, there is distrust of Chinese brands, fueled by periodic reports of incorrect operation of Xiaomi devices. To summarize, we can highlight the sides for which the company's products are praised, as well as the nuances that are criticized.

Xioami Benefits

Xiaomi gets positive reviews mainly for the combination of price and features. But there are other points for which the manufacturer can be praised.

Price

The price of Xiaomi smartphones is what the Xiaomi brand receives only positive reviews for. The cost of the devices is very competitive even against the background of numerous Chinese competitors. We can highlight Meizu, Huawei, ZTE, Oppo, Vivo and others making similar products for comparison. Then it becomes clear that at equal cost, Xiaomi is striving to at least slightly surpass its rivals in iron. And sometimes even these companies have products that are much more expensive, with equal characteristics. Xiaomi's strategy in this regard gives the company an undeniable advantage.

Specifications

Xioami try not to compromise when creating their devices. If this is a flagship, then the processor in it must also be the flagship, the fastest available on the market (like the Snapdragon 821 in the new Mi5S). If it's a Redmi device, it should have a flagship MediaTek chip or a balanced mid-range chip from Qualcomm (comparable in capabilities). No "cut-down" state employees, for the sake of ensuring greater autonomy at the expense of speed. Much attention is also paid to the build quality; in this regard, state employees are not much inferior to the flagships.

Own OS

Any system can be criticized for objective flaws, but only those who have not used it for a long time (at least a couple of weeks or a month) can be a MIUI hater (as well as fiercely hate Apple technology). MIUI OS is a little unusual, but its interface is more attractive than the "naked" Android, the settings menu has been expanded and improved, working with customizing the interface for yourself (themes, shortcuts, screensavers) will not cause difficulties even for a person far from the IT world / Many functions, such as support for a fingerprint scanner, clearing memory in the multitasking menu, advanced security settings, appear in MIUI earlier than in the original Android.

Russian language, Google services "out of the box" - all this is already in MIUI, no "shamanism" is needed to localize the interface and install PlayMarket. In addition, the developers are pleased with the operational updates, which are released from once a week to once a month. Not as fast as Apple's (which, if a bug is found, can release an update the next day), but users do not have to turn on Hachiko mode, as the owners of Chinese smartphones of lesser-known brands. If earlier it was possible to criticize Xiaomi for the slowness of updating the OS version, now they have accelerated. Most of the current devices have already received MIUI 8 on the Android 6 core, the active development of MIUI 9 with Android 7 inside.

Explosion of popularity or a little about Xiaomi Tech

Xiaomi Tech Is a Chinese brand known today in the field of mobile technologies. The company was founded in 2010 and began its activities with the creation of its own MIUI operating system.

Its intuitive interface and stability made it so popular in China that millions of users have installed it on their mobile devices. This operating system is suitable not only for smartphones manufactured by the company, but also for all devices based on the Android platform.

The start of the Chinese company was swift and already in 2011 the Mi1 smartphone was announced, followed by the Mi2, sales of which were in the millions.

At the same time, Xiaomi is releasing tablets, routers, speakers, TVs and other electronics, thus showing a steady growth trend. In 2013, the MI3 smartphone appears, in 2014 - MI4. In the Chinese market, the company occupies an honorable third place in terms of smartphone sales.

The company's products captivated users with their high performance, reliability and low cost. And in a very short time, it gained popularity not only among the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom, but also in India, Singapore, Taiwan. Very soon it will be appreciated in Russia, Mexico, Turkey, Brazil.

Rapid conquest of markets by Xiaomi through the implementation of a huge number of different gadgets reduces the popularity of brands such as Samsung, ZTE, HTC. In the ranking of the most used phones in China, Xiaomi is the top favorite after Apple, Nokia and Huawei.

But despite the leadership, Xiaomi products are not so easy to purchase. The secret lies in a special way of distributing goods, adopted by the company. All major sales of smartphones and tablets take place online.

It is possible to hold the device in hands, to get acquainted with its external and internal properties only in showrooms in Beijing. All Xiaomi products are presented there, as well as branded accessories and related products with the company's symbols: a hare with a pioneer tie and a hat with earflaps with a red star.

In this way, Xiaomi Tech is one of the few Chinese brands with fantastic growth rates and an entrenched “new Apple” definition.

About Xiaomi's plans

The Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi Tech plans to continue to delight its fans with the best manufactured products in terms of price-quality ratio. The network has information about plans to expand the product line and release a laptop of its own brand.

It is also planned to release smartphones with sapphire glass, which makes the screen invulnerable to shock, scratches and other damage. The new Xiaomi Arch smartphone will surprise users with a three-sided display.

And, of course, the next release of Xiaomi MI5 is not far off with even more improved characteristics, increased RAM and resolution. The company will also focus on the production of other devices. We are talking about a wireless Bluetooth gamepad, which should become a quality alternative and be affordable for all gamers.

So, Xiaomi is preparing a number of competitive products, and we just have to follow their appearance in online sales, get acquainted with the characteristics and buy the best!

Recently, the news feeds of various online magazines and blogs about technology have filled with news about new products in the world of smartphones. In particular, we are talking about gadgets originally from China - for such devices as Meizu, Vivo and Xiaomi, there will be one manufacturer country. The owners of such companies staged a serious race in the global smartphone market, releasing more and more new models over and over again, the main advantage of which is a lower price compared to such world-famous mastodons as Samsung or Apple. However, many are still held back from buying by the fact that these cheaper products belong to Chinese brands. We will try to refute or confirm such guesses in this article.

We noticed that even many regular users of Xiaomi products still do not know how to pronounce this name correctly. Three vowels in a row are especially unusual - it is very difficult to decide how to read and pronounce it, especially for a Russian person.

There are many variations - and Xiomi, and Xiaomi, and Tsaomi, and even Haomi. Translated from Chinese into Russian, the brand name reads like "Xiaomi". The word consists of two parts - "Xiao", which means "small", and "Mi" ("Mi") - "rice". In literary translation, the word sounds like "grain of rice". As for the spelling - for a Russian person the easiest way is to use the principle “as it is heard, so it is written”.

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Xiaomi: history

Xiaomi is a brand of a large company Xiaomi Keji, which was founded not so long ago - in 2010. Its founder and now the owner is an IT specialist from the Middle Kingdom named Lei Jun, who opened a business with his partners.

From the outset, the firm began developing an OS for smartphones called MIUI, a variation of the popular Android. After 1.5 years, Xiaomi released the first smartphone called Mi1, which was rather warmly received by the Chinese. A year later - Mi2, whose sales jumped to 11 million people, which is ten times more than the IPhone 1 and almost as much as the IPhone 3G all the time. In addition, Xiaomi is also assembled at Foxconn factories, as well as Apple.

In 2013, the Mi3 smartphone was announced, and in addition several models of TVs and other devices were presented - production expanded. Around the same time, the founders of the brand voiced its development strategy. The main point in it is saving on retail stores (there are not so many of them as in other brands), as well as the minimum price due to the sale of smartphones almost at their cost price and the sale of places in cloud storage, which is income due to additional services. Thanks to this, the company easily ensured a high level of sales and their rapid growth in the shortest possible time.

Redmi line and other brand products

Already in 2014, the company released the famous line of Redmi smartphones, thereby significantly increasing the number of regular customers of the company. And if initially smartphones did not stand out in anything, except for the price, then with Redmi you could already get much more at the same price as the rest. Thanks to the fact that in the years 15-16, Xiaomi released devices of the 2nd and 3rd generations, the company's sales skyrocketed - over 100 million units were officially sold. For comparison, HTC and LG had less sales in total over the same period.

In addition to smartphones, over time, the company began to produce many other products - power banks, fitness bracelets, laptops, TVs, cameras, quadcopters, action cameras, lamps, tablets and even bicycles. And the cool thing is that the manufactured devices are becoming no less popular in the market than smartphones. The owner of Xiaomi has repeatedly announced his intention to become a top manufacturer of electronic products in the world. So, perhaps, soon no one will have any questions about what kind of Xiaomi company and what it is.

User reviews about Xiaomi

Xiaomi, like any other brand whose product contains both positive and negative aspects, boasts a huge number of reviews that have accumulated over the past years of its popularity. It's no secret that many people mistrust the products of Chinese brands and hardly decide to purchase such equipment, fearing that it will turn out to be unreliable or short-lived. We can highlight the main pros and cons of Xiaomi smartphones, and it is up to you to choose what to buy.

pros

1. Price. This is the first and, perhaps, the main criterion for choosing Xiaomi by many users. Even against the backdrop of a huge number of competitors in China, Xiaomi clearly wins in value. If we compare similar models from Xiaomi and other brands (the same Meizu, for example), then the first one provides a better and more powerful product, or it also offers the same option, but at a lower price.

1. Own operating system. Any OS will have its drawbacks, but only those who have never used it will criticize MIUI. It, like IOS, is initially slightly unusual, but after a while you will get so used to it that you will not be able to use anything else simply because of its maximum convenience, versatility, as well as smoothness and ease of use. Even a person who is far from the world of gadgets can understand this OS due to its simplicity and intuitive interface. Also, many features, such as a fingerprint scanner or advanced smartphone security settings in MIUI, were implemented even earlier than in classic Android. In addition, the Russian language is already installed in the Xiaomi gadget out of the box, as well as some Google services (for example, mail or Play Market), and the speed of OS updates and bug fixes cannot but rejoice - users do not have to wait long for the firmware update to their smartphone.
2. Specifications. Xiaomi, as a company that produces not only state employees, but also top-end gadgets, always adheres to a strict rule - if the released smartphone is a flagship, then there is no place to save on hardware - it should be the best and at the same time the most affordable on the market. There should be absolutely no damage to the performance of a smartphone, and many flagships in the world of smartphones can envy the build quality even in budget models.

Minuses

1. Operating system drawbacks. As we know, Xiaomi very often announces many phones - at least ten a year. Such a wide variety of software does not in any way help the company provide technical support as well as it is implemented, for example, by Apple. As a result, there are many small claims to the manufacturer - either third-party applications are unstable, the caller's photo is not displayed on the full screen, or something else. Fortunately, there are practically no serious disadvantages in the operation of the OS, as evidenced by the minimum number of negative reviews about MIUI.
2. Small flaws. Over and over again releasing new and new models in the line of Xiaomi gadgets, manufacturers do not always have the opportunity to make their product perfect. As a result, the gadgets are good, but not perfect. For example, judging by the dry numbers, the screen characteristics in the Redmi Note 3 Pro model are in no way inferior to the display in the IPhone 6S Plus, but in fact, the color rendering indicators, as well as brightness and contrast, are somewhat worse. The same questions arise about the camera - 16 megapixels in the Mi Max model give a result visually worse than 12 megapixels in the iPhone 6S, and in the Samsung Galaxy J5, the quality of shooting in the evening is much better compared to the Redmi Note 3 Pro camera.

1. User support. Since the official representation was opened already in 2016, then, therefore, before that smartphones were "gray". In fact, at the moment there are also a lot of similar devices, especially when the sale goes from hand to hand. The fact that the smartphone is "gray" in itself is not terrible, but in the context of shortcomings, it can highlight the lack of any technical support for such devices from the manufacturer, as well as the lack of warranty and certified service. It turns out that instead of an authorized SC repairing the phone in the event of a breakdown, the seller of the phone will have to pay for the breakdown. Of course, no one will do it with great willingness.

Conclusion

The history of the company does not last many years, but during this time Xiaomi has firmly entered the market of gadgets and other devices and is successfully moving towards its goal. After all, some three years ago no one knew what kind of company it was and what it was producing. Xiaomi is actively working on opening official representative offices of the company in many Western countries and is very zealous in promoting its brand, while receiving considerable returns from its work. So, in just 3 years, Xiaomi has become the fourth largest brand in China, and its MIUI operating system has become the most popular in the whole world. Not bad results, isn't it?