Xiaomi is currently the number 1 smartphone manufacturer in China, at least as far as sales within the country go. This China-based company is constantly battling Huawei for the no. 1 spot in China, but it seems Xiaomi managed to keep it, at least according to Canalys and Strategy Analytics, market research companies which released their findings yesterday. That being said, Huawei has a significant presence overseas, while Xiaomi might expand to new markets this year, in order to grow further. We still don’t have any official info as when that might happen nor which markets is Xiaomi aiming to expand to, but we’ll keep you in the loop.
That being said, you probably already know that US Mobile announced the availability of a couple of Xiaomi-branded devices yesterday. The US-based carrier said that they’ll offer Xiaomi Mi 3, Mi 4 and Redmi 2 in the country. Now, what was interesting when it comes to that announcement, is the fact that none of those devices support 4G LTE connectivity, which is quite normal considering they’re not manufactured for the US market, things will probably be significantly different if Xiaomi opts to officially sell devices in the country. Speaking of which, Xiaomi has reached out to us to clarify all this US Mobile business, read on.
According to Xiaomi, US Mobile is not their official partner, and is not authorized to sell the company’s products in the US. This basically means that US Mobile decided to acquire supplies from a third-party source, a China-based reseller most probably. Xiaomi has also confirmed that they have no plans for selling their smartphones in the US at the moment. Now, on top of all this, it seems like US Mobile removed the listing for all three Xiaomi smartphones from their site, and the Meizu M2 Note which was placed there alongside with Xiaomi’s products yesterday. The phones might get listed again, but that’s not likely at this point. It seems like US consumers are, once again, limited to purchasing XIoami’s accessories in the country, at least as far as official availability goes. We do hope that Xiaomi will make their smartphones available in the US, but we’ll see. Either way, we’ll keep you informed, stay tuned.