Xiaomi is a very young company, this China-based smartphone manufacturer was founded back in 2010, and in less than 5 years they were already the number one smartphone OEM in China. This company has managed to sell 61 million smartphones last year, and are planning to improve upon that, not to mention that all sorts of expansion are planned by the end of this year. Xiaomi plans to start manufacturing smartphones in India, and also expand to Brazil, and who knows what’s next. The point is, the company has lots going on at the moment, and they’re one of the fastest growing smartphone OEMs in the world, and that brings a lot of publicity their way.
This Chinese smartphone OEM has released a ton of smartphones and all sorts of other devices this year, and we’ve seen a lot of Xiaomi-related rumors and leaks floating around lately. Some of those rumors were saying that the company plans to acquire the well-known struggling Taiwan-based smartphone OEM, HTC. These rumors were quickly denied by HTC’s chairwoman, Cher Wang. HTC’s shares are now lower than ever and things really don’t look so good for the Taiwanese smartphone OEM. The buyout is always a possibility in cases like this, and much like BlackBerry, HTC is in real trouble at the moment it seems. This company has been having issues turning profit for quite some time now, though they did manage to soften the blow in late 2014 thanks to cutting cost, but it seems like that didn’t last for long. HTC has released a number of high-end devices since March 2015, and it remains to be seen if that will help the company. Keep in mind that the majority of those handsets are exclusive to Asia at the moment.
Anyhow, buyout rumors are completely normal in cases like this, as stated already, but they were not accurate in this case. I don’t know if you recall, but some reports were claiming that Xiaomi intends to purchase BlackBerry quite recently as well, thought those rumors started last year. Now, the question remains, is it necessary for Xiaomi to purchase HTC or Blackberry? Well, it all depends on how you look at it, it certainly isn’t necessary, though everyone could use the patent portfolio owned by both of these companies, that’s for sure. Is it going to happen though? I personally really doubt that. Xiaomi is thriving at the moment, the company is trying to expand their business to as many markets as possible, but is taking one step at a time, and I doubt they’d be ready to spend a whole lot of cash in order to purchase a huge (and troubled) company as HTC or BlackBerry. It is, of course, possible that I’m wrong, but it just doesn’t make sense at the moment.
Xiaomi’s growth-rate is staggering, and they’re focused on not only expanding their business, but also expanding their portfolio. This China-based smartphone OEM wasn’t the only company rumored to be interested in BlackBerry and HTC though, Lenovo, Samsung, Apple… and a number more companies were rumored to be interested in at least one of these two companies at some point. So, is Xiaomi going to acquire HTC / BlackBerry? Quite probably no. What about some other tech giant? Well, it is possible. HTC and BlackBerry have tried to get their head above the water a number of times before, and haven’t been able to do that. These two companies are seriously struggling and will either miraculously strive in the coming time, or someone will acquire them.