By now, you’ve probably heard of Xiaomi, the Chinese manufacturer that has risen to the top by offering affordable smartphones with decent specs and their custom Android software MIUI. In fact, a number of you might be running an MIUI ROM on your device right now. In China however, Xiaomi has become something of a celebrity and there now more than just a slightly successful smartphone company in a sea of other smartphone companies. Instead, Xiaomi is leading the pack in China and with their latest announcement, it’s clear that the demand for affordable, yet quality, smartphones in Asia is as high as we’re always told.
The Chinese giant recently announced that they had sold 15 Million of their Mi2 line of smartphones, which is no mean feat for any manufacturer, but when you consider that these devices were never made available outside of China, the figure carries even more weight. The 2013 smartphone featured some decent specs, such as the 4.5-inch 1280 x 720 display and 8-megapixel camera, and while that’s nothing compared to the likes of the Galaxy S5, these devices were produced and sold at much lower costs. Now, the company is celebrating with a price cut on the Mi2s, which is now even cheaper, starting at just $210 or so.
As we move into 2014, we should be hearing a lot more noise from Xiaomi. Hugo Barra, of Google fame, left Mountain View to work for Xiaomi in China and is said to be the main instrument in the company’s much-rumored international expansion. It’ll certainly be hard for Xiaomi to sell their devices here in the US, as the aggressive carriers continue to make it difficult for newcomers, but affordable devices like this have a good chance of proving popular in much of Europe, the rest of Asia and Latin America. Hopefully, the Chinese manufacturer will no longer be a China-only company and start to ship smartphones all over the globe.