Xiaomi’ CEO has recently announced that the company has shipped out 70 million smartphones in 2015. Now, some of you might know that this basically means that Xiaomi didn’t hit their sales target considering they aimed to sell between 80 and 100 million smartphones last year. This is not necessarily a bad thing though, considering the fact that Xiaomi shipped 61 million units in 2014, so this is growth after all, no matter which way you look at it.
That being said, Xiaomi has started selling their smartphones in Brazil in 2015, and has expanded further into Asia. This year, however, should represent Xiaomi’s arrival to many more markets, including the US. Xiaomi has announced quite recently that they’ll partner up with United Arab Emirates-based company called Task FZCO in order to sell smartphones, as we’ve announced a while back. Well, Xiaomi has partnered with that company, and a UAE-based carrier Etisalat as well, in order to sell four of their devices. The Xiaomi Redmi 2 Pro, Redmi Note 2, Mi 4i and Mi Note will be available in the UAE. Now, as far as pricing goes, these four devices will be priced at AED449 ($122), AED719 ($196), AED899 ($245) and AED1,699 ($463), respectively. FZCO will introduce these devices to Saudi Arabia as well before the end of this month.
Now, one thing to keep in mind here is the fact that Task FZCO has reach all over the Middle East and will surely be a useful partnership for Xiaomi. As already mentioned, this China-based smartphone manufacturer has a huge appetite for success, they’ve managed to become China’s number one OEM in less than 5 years. The smartphone sales in China are slowing down, and many China-based smartphone manufacturers are looking for a way to expand their business. Huawei, unlike Xiaomi, already has distribution chains all over the world, and Xiaomi is eager to follow in its footsteps. We’ll see what happens later this year, but you can expect to see Xiaomi hit a number of markets before the end of the year, that much is certain, which means we’re in for a really interesting year.