For a lot of people, Xioami is known as one of the most popular and successful smartphone manufacturers to have launched in China in the past decade, but the company wants to become much more than that. Xiaomi has great smartphones available in both the low-end as well as the high-end with the likes of the recently launched Mi 5, but the company also has a strong home electronics offering as well, particularly those that are “smart”. Xiaomi has made a name for themselves by partnering with other device manufacturers out there, making it easy for them to offer a myriad of different devices under their “Mi” branding. From humble beginnings to Smart TV sets, air conditioning units, rice cookers and yes, smart lights, Xiaomi has become a seller of not just smartphones, but gadgets in general, and they want smart home devices to become a serious portion of their revenue this year.
During the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing recently, Xiaomi’s Vice President, Liu De, said that Xiaomi wants their smart home devices to double in sales. That means an increase from 5 Billion Yuan last year to a whopping 10 Billion Yuan this year, bringing home roughly $1.54 Billion should the firm meet their lofty goal. This is part of Xiaomi’s effort to ensure that, despite a backward trend in the smartphone market, the company has sources of revenue for a long time to come. Smaller devices from Xiaomi have proven popular in the past, with their power banks and other accessories selling well in the Chinese market and spreading into another key market of theirs; India. We reviewed one of these smart home devices with the Yeelight, which is a smart bedside lamp that can be completely controlled from your smartphone.
There’s more where that came from of course, and Xiaomi ship and sell all manner of smart devices including a rice cooker, home routers, TVs and a whole lot more besides. With this approach, Xiaomi hope their “Mi” branding will become instantly recognizable throughout China, and help propel them to the same sort of recognition Apple and Samsung have in their own home countries.