Xiaomi is, next to Huawei, the largest smartphone manufacturer in China. This company grew immensely in the last couple of years, they have sold around 70 million smartphones last year, which is quite a feat considering Xiaomi’s smartphones are still not available in that many regions. Anyhow, the company has introduced a number of products in 2016, including their new flagship, the Mi 5. Now, the demand for Xiaomi’s smartphones can be too much even for the company to handle, Xiaomi simply cannot manufacture enough devices from time to time, which is why they’re using the ‘flash sale’ model, like many other China-based companies. Well, it seems like the company is looking for a way to amend this, read on.
Xiaomi’s internal letter leaked, a letter which was sent by Xiaomi’s CEO, Lei Jun. This letter reveals that the company’s CEO is taking full responsibility for Xiaomi’s supply chain, and that the existing supply chain head, Zhou Guanping, will be moved to the technology research department. This basically means that we could expect some changes in the company’s supply chain moving forward, Lei Jun will certainly try to increase Xiaomi’s production capacity in order to be able to meet the demand faster. Now, Xiaomi’s supply chain is quite powerful as it is, but it seems like that’s not enough for the company. Xiaomi’s current flagship, the Mi 5, is one of the most sought-after Xiaomi-branded smartphones at the moment. Xiaomi manufactures 700,000 Mi 5 units per month, while Huawei, for example, manufactured 900,000 Mate 8 handsets per month. Oppo is yet another great example, this China-based company pushes out 2 million Oppo R9 units per month, which is significantly more than what Xiaomi is capable of at the moment.
That is more or less it. Xiaomi’s CEO will be in charge of the company’s production chain from now on, and even though we can’t expect things to change overnight, we do expect to see results of this in the near future. Xiaomi is looking to expand further, and in order to be competitive in Europe and the US, they’ll need to increase their production capacity, that’s for sure.