Xiaomi, arguably the biggest name in China that doesn’t have a single phone available in North America or even Europe. Xiaomi was founded back in 2010. That’s right, the company is only 5 years old and is already huge. Xiaomi recently expanded from China over into India and have seen a ton of success since getting into India. The Indian market is one that prefers the really cheap smartphones, ones around $150 USD (that’s about Rs. 10,000 in their currency), and the Xiaomi Mi4i has done very well over there. Now Xiaomi is looking at North America.
Bin Lin, who is the president and one of seven founders of Xiaomi, stated at the WSJD Conference today that the company is looking to enter the US. Of course, this isn’t the first time this has been said. Xiaomi’s most famous executive, Hugo Barra – most likely because of his former employer, Google – had stated before in an interview with Bloomberg that they do plan to come to the US in the next few years. One thing that the company will need to do is to strengthen their patent portfolio. When they entered into India, they were greeted with a lawsuit from Ericsson.
While Xiaomi is more known for their smartphones like the Mi 4, the Mi Note Pro and many others. That’s not all that Xiaomi makes. In fact, this week they announced the Mi TV 3, which is a 60-inch 4K Smart TV. They also announced a motorized scooter, their first since acquiring Segway. They also have a slew of other products, a number of which are more popular in their home country then over here in the US. Like an air purifier. As most of you probably know the air in China is not that clean, in fact it’s some of the most polluted air in the world. So an air purifier is definitely needed over there. All of these are sold at near cost. Which means they aren’t making a huge profit. But they are profiting on the services that come with the products.
We’ve reviewed a number of Xiaomi products here at Android Headlines, and really love their devices. Especially the Mi Note Pro. Now if we could just bring those devices over here, we’d have some real competition.