Xiaomi has a huge appetite. The company has been growing constantly over the years, and its growth has been even higher since Huawei got banned by the US. Now, Lu Weibing, a Senior VP of Xiaomi Group China and GM of Redmi, shared some interesting info. Xiaomi actually plans to become the world’s number 1 smartphone OEM in 3 years.
Xiaomi plans to surpass Samsung and become the world’s number 1 smartphone OEM in 3 years
The company is planning to surpass both Samsung and Apple. We’re talking about proper leadership here, as Xiaomi already managed to outsell both of those companies in a single quarter. That happened in Q2 this year, actually, you can read more about that by clicking here.
Anyhow, Lu Weibing said that Xiaomi will be targeting China’s offline mobile phone market first. Why? Well, 70-percent of smartphones are still sold in stores in China. Xiaomi wants to have 30,000 retail stores in China in three years, it’s still 20,000 stores short of that goal, as it recently opened its 10,000th store.
OPPO and Vivo still have an upper hand when it comes to retail stores in China. That is something Xiaomi wants to change moving forward. The same plan seems to be in place outside of China, it seems.
Xiaomi wants to open as many retail stores as possible. That is a great way of presenting its products to consumers, and making consumers familiar with them. It is the best form of marketing, in a way.
Xiaomi managed to outsell both Samsung & Apple in Q2 2021
That being said, even now, Xiaomi is doing great when it comes to smartphone sales. It trumped both Samsung and Apple in Q2, while it was ranked third in the third quarter, but it’s not far from Apple in terms of shipments.
Apple sold 48 million smartphones in Q3, while Xiaomi followed with 44.4 million smartphone shipments. This information comes from Counterpoint Research, by the way.
Now, Xiaomi may be able to trump Apple in the near future, but Samsung will be a bigger challenge. Samsung shipped 69 million smartphones in the third quarter, which is still quite a huge advantage over Xiaomi.
It is worth noting that Samsung does sell its smartphones in the US, while Xiaomi does not. That is an area that Xiaomi may be looking to advance in, even though Huawei’s experience probably makes them wonder whether that’s a good idea.