Xiaomi reaches its 100 million annual target for smartphone shipments two months ahead of plan
- Xiaomi’s phone shipments in the first 10 months increased 43 per cent year on year
Xiaomi, the world’s fourth largest smartphone vendor, reached its annual goal of 100 million units on Friday night, company chief executive Lei Jun said on his Sina Weibo account on Saturday.
Beijing-based Xiaomi’s smartphone shipments in the first 10 months increased 43 per cent year on year. Last year, the company also achieved its annual target two months earlier by shipping 70 million phones in the first 10 months.
In comparison, China’s largest smartphone maker Huawei Technologies reached 100 million smartphone shipments in July, putting it on track for its annual target of 200 million.
Xiaomi’s better-than-expected shipments stand in contrast to the sluggish performance of its shares, which have slumped 30 per cent since their debut in Hong Kong in June, when Xiaomi raised US$4.72 billion.
In the second quarter Xiaomi’s shipments rose 49 per cent year on year to 31.9 million compared to the 1.8 per cent decline seen in overall global shipments, according to the research firm IDC. That performance put it in the No 4 spot globally after Samsung Electronics, Huawei and Apple, and ahead of Chinese vendor Oppo in fifth spot. Xiaomi said its total sales for the second quarter, including non-smartphone products, grew 68.3 per cent to 45.23 billion yuan (US$6.5 billion).
“Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo are all slowly pushing their customer base upstream at a price tier slightly lower than the top three. This is an area they should all watch closely as the builds in this segment are getting increasingly more advanced,” Ryan Reith, vice-president with IDC’s Woldwide Mobile Device Trackers, said in a report.
In the Chinese market, Xiaomi is facing stronger competition. Last week, Lei traded barbs with Huawei over whose camera was the best. The Xiaomi chief executive said at the launch of its Mi Mix 3 in Beijing on Thursday that its camera specifications were better than the P20 Pro from Huawei Technologies.
Richard Yu Chengdong, chief executive of Huawei's Consumer Business Group, responded to Lei on social media, saying “Any smartphone maker cannot surpass Huawei’s P20 Pro in a short period of time. Only we can surpass ourselves".
Facing a saturated market domestically, Xiaomi has been sharpening its focus internationally, setting a goal of having more than half of its annual revenue derived from overseas.
Xiaomi has been the No 1 smartphone vendor in India, the world’s second largest smartphone market, for the past several quarters while it also narrowed the gap with leader Samsung in Indonesia in the second quarter. Xiaomi has also been trying to expand its market share in Europe by opening offline stores and expanding its online channels.