Xiaomi has shipped 35 million smartphones in H1 2015

Slowly but surely, Xiaomi is moving towards being the global company that many have been wanting it to be. For now, the company is securing its bases in Asia and starting to test the water overseas.

According to a fresh report, the young Chinese maker has already shipped 35 million smartphones in 2015. Those are encouraging numbers indeed, especially for a company of Xiaomi’s calibre which has only been growing since its inception.

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The Chinese giant is now preparing the Mi 5 (or whatever the next-gen flagship be called) launch, which should take place within the next few months. The Mi Note flagship from earlier this year was a bit of a deviation from the usual pricing strategies of Xiaomi, and fans would certainly want to see the company go back to the $320 pricing for their next one.

Besides phones, Xiaomi also makes a tablet and a lot of other accessories and merchandise, including selfie sticks, power banks, LED lights, and more.

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Yash Garg
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- June 23, 2015
  Well, IMO, if they can sustain their strategy of putting out high quality and reasonably priced phones, then I believe that 100M target might not be too far off.
  - MaxPower
    June 23, 2015
    not if they sell in china and india only. the competition is too rough, they have to expand to new countries.
    - balcobomber25
      June 23, 2015
      Yea have to agree with you on that one. India is the toughest battleground right now for phones. The market is huge but everyone is trying to get a piece of it. Xiaomi has to contend with Lenovo and Gionee who both do very well in India as well as other Chinese brands getting ready to sell there. It doesn’t help that Micromax is starting to release some very good phones as well.
- balcobomber25
  June 23, 2015
  That all depends on how fast the can expand. If they expand fully to places like Brazil, Thailand, Mexico, Turkey and Russia 100m might be low.
- Guaire
  June 23, 2015
  Not in this year.
  - MaxPower
    June 23, 2015
    nope, there’s no rabbit that they can pull out of the hat to make it happen this year.
    - Guaire
      June 23, 2015
      I can suggest several rabbits to boost their sales, but unfortunately most of them price related.
      I also agree with you too about their need expanding to other countries.
      - balcobomber25
        June 23, 2015
        They would have to launch in several new markets to get close to 100m and being 6 months into the year already it’s just not feasible. The release of a Mi5, Redmi Note 2 and a new Mi Pad this year could boost them up to maybe $75m but they would have to launch within the next month.
        
        Guaire
        June 24, 2015
        I guess tablets isn’t including that figures.
        After 35M in H1, reaching 100M is near impossible IMO. If they can put a real effort in H2 they can reach 80M.
        They are usually slow in the new markets anyway. For example they have to release Mi5 in all markets as possible as simultaneously, not 6 months later at best like Mi4.
        Redmi Note 2 should be launched months ago, still we are not seeing a sign of it. They need it in short term and they need it impressive in it’s class.
        Mi5 must beginning from 1999 yuan with real flagship specs.
        Looks like they are going to launch Mi4i in China soon, with right pricing it could provide great help, but it could not be popular if it’s price tag would be close to it’s international price IMO.
        I read somewhere they ordered 13M chips from Leadcore for Redmi 2A for this year, but Coolpad discounted F1 to 399 yuan.

balcobomber25
June 23, 2015
Reports like this have to scare the crap out of companies like Apple and Samsung. Xiaomi is only in a handful of countries and they are selling this well. Imagine what happens when they invade countries like South Korea, Japan, USA and the EU. When people realize they can get a great phone for a cheap price sales from the typical “Big Phone companies” will start to minimize to the point that they have to lower their prices.
- MaxPower
  June 23, 2015
  I agree, the numbers are huge considering the numerous factors that happened this year.
  Lei Jun projections were way too optimistic though.
  Something went wrong with the opening of new markets.
  IF everything goes straight in the future like a good Leadcore SoC for low tiers, good Qualcomm SoC for Mid and high tiers and new official markets then it’s going to be fun
- Tizz
  June 23, 2015
  I agree with you but IMHO if they will start selling in EU i don’t think many people will buy Xiaomi smartphones, i mean, i’m a teenager and I live in Italy and almost every teenager (no joking) has a Samsung or Apple device, good quality/price ratio smartphones are already here (Zenfone 2) but almost none has it.
  Maybe it’s just an “age” thing but i really doubt people will start buying Xiaomi (or another chinese manufacturer) when they can buy other really famous brands.
  - MaxPower
    June 23, 2015
    what you said it’s true, teenagers will always request iphones or Samsung because they don’t care about budget(they don’t pay for it).
    but there’s many people in Europe that go for low tiers like Samsung A series or Moto G (mostly adults).
    They can target those people until the brand will become “cool” enough to be appealing for teenagers as well.
    - Tizz
      June 23, 2015
      Uhm maybe, but i think they’ll do a heavy marketing campaign and target teenagers like said by balco because teenagers always want what is trending at the moment, and if Xiaomi will do a good marketing campaign it will easily become a trend (i think they could do an ad with footballers because especially in Europe football is a really big thing, Oppo did that too).
      - MaxPower
        June 23, 2015
        Tizz
        June 23, 2015
        Nope, OPPO it’s the official sponsor of Barcelona which is the biggest football team at the moment, IMO it’s a really good marketing strategy especially because Barcelona just won the Champions League so both the team and Oppo will increase their popularity.
        Airyl
        June 24, 2015
        Oppo sponsors everything in Malaysia. Comedy shows, sports, news, you name it.
  - balcobomber25
    June 23, 2015
    Theres a big difference between the Zenfone and Xioami. It was the same way in Malaysia, Singapore and other countries Xiaomi recently expanded too. The Asus is a very good phone but the brand just isn’t known for being cool or hip (plus the phone if fugly!). Xiaomi is completely different. Xiaomi was born entirely from social media and every country they invade they target people specifically like you, teenagers. And so far every country they have gone head to head with Apple and Samsung and done pretty well. EU will be no different.
    - Tizz
      June 23, 2015
      Wow i didn’t think of that, you are right, their marketing strategy is indeed good and the devices are good looking but Xiaomi is just on new markets where people don’t want to actually spend much on their first phone and they offer good phones at a good price (unlike Samsung and Apple), instead EU and USA are saturate and people actually pay a lot for smartphones so i think it will be harder for them to expand in these countries, but yeah they probably will do a really good marketing campaign and sell good.
- Agreed totally with you, Balco.
- Xalis
  June 23, 2015
  Lol.
  If they go worldwide you can forget about $300-$400 dollars flagships from them and start looking at $800-$1200.
  - balcobomber25
    June 23, 2015
    Why would they charge that much? Xiaomi has a profit model that has proven to work, offer phones that are relatively cheap and recoup the sales by selling a lot over time and the MIUI store. This model took them from startup to one of the biggest in the world in less than 5 years. You don’t change a successful profit model if you are a smart business.
- Angry Mobile Nerd
  June 23, 2015
  Why would Apple care? They’re in their own bubble.
  btw Xiaomi has yet to penetrate a large developed country let alone a developed western country — this will be the real test. Selling cheap phones in developing countries is like throwing bread crumbs to pigeons.
  - balcobomber25
    June 23, 2015
    ‘Apple is in their own bubble’ . They’re numerous lawsuits in developing countries say otherwise. They are more scared of competition than anyone in the business.
    - Angry Mobile Nerd
      June 24, 2015
      It has nothing to do with them being scared it’s just business. They spend millions on IP protection and the only way to offset the costs is to a) license or b) win lawsuits on people who infringe. IP 101 pick up a book, pleeeaasseee.
      - balcobomber25
        June 24, 2015
        I have read plenty of books and I have specialized in market analysis for the past 10+ years all over Asia. Books have nothing to with Apple being scared of competition in foreign markets. Apple’s IP’s (as well as other major brand) get infringed on every day by hundreds of companies and they don’t even bat an eye lash because those companies pose zero risk to their profits. Companies like Samsung and Xiaomi however do.
        This isn’t a view I alone share, google the words “apple scared Xiaomi” and you will find thousands of articles from tech bloggers, business sites (Forbes, CNN Money etc) saying the same thing. Read a business website or newspaper pleeeeeeaaaasseeee. I recommend the WSJ or Bloomberg.
        
        Angry Mobile Nerd
        June 24, 2015
        Go to Google search and type “Apple scared” and let Google do it’s auto-sentance complete with the top 10 suggestions and you pleasantly see “Xiaomi” is not one of them.
        Yes we all know you love Xiaomi and you think the world should be afraid of them and while there is a place for Xiaomi in the market they’re not going to reach even Samsung’s level anytime soon. Xiaomi is ultimately going to do to the mobile world what Wal-mart did to the retail world; drive prices down to the point other company’s can’t survive and cost a lot of people their jobs in the process. Xiaomi is still a Chinese company and the Chinese will destroy any industry through whatever manipulative means if it means they come out on top. Just look at what they’re doing to their own environment for economic gain.
        You seem to have some weakness/sympathy for them and that’s exactly what the Chinese want. What are you going to do when your company can hire Chinese market analysis that will do your job for 1/4 the pay?
        balcobomber25
        June 24, 2015
        I have an understanding how business works, apparently you don’t. My admiration for Xiaomi has nothing to do with this conversation. Like you said they are just like Walmart they invade a market and they drive prices down. That is exactly what Apple is afraid of. The hardcore Apple fanboys will always buy their products (just like Samsung and Xiaomi). Those are not what those clever Apple ads are for. They are for the people who have no brand allegiance and want the best value for their money, and those people number in the millions. Apple and Samsung are both scared that if the Chinese enter a market like the US and offer the same specs for half the price their bottom line is going to start shrinking. Those casual customers will realize they don’t need to buy a phone for $700 ( or sign up with a carrier for $80 a month on a subsidized contract). They can buy the same flagship phone for half the price and have no contracts.
        My company already employs Chinese analysts we have three offices in Guangzhou, Shenzen and Shanghai. They haven’t even come close to affecting my job, and if they did, I have dozens of open job offers from some of the top tech firms in Asia. .
realjjj
June 23, 2015
It’s actually a bit unlikely that they shipped 20 mil units in Q2 even with the Redmi 2A at 499CNY at times and the recent price cuts. Even if they did, it’s not all that good and the product line is lacking.
SD620 showed up today for the first time so maybe we see a MI5 with it soon http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/2830267?baseline=2826004
- Guaire
  June 23, 2015
  A72s seems even more powerful than ARM’s own claim. If SD620 has a powerful GPU comparable to Adreno 430, Qualcomm can recover it’s reputation, but that can put SD810 phones even worse position.
  - realjjj
    June 23, 2015
    If it’s on 28nm the GPU might be slower than the 430 but it’s unclear if it’s on 28nm, what version of the process and we have no clue what this “next gen GPU” can do.
    Single core does as expected for the clocks given the previous results from Mediatek’s MT8173 at 2GHz. Multi core here is likely TDP limited so we’ll have to see how it does with 1-2 big cores loaded. Ofc these are just the first results we’ve seen and hard to say in what stage the software is, multi core perf could get better.
    On the LTE side the SD620 is supposed to be only cat7 so they do place it as an upper mid-range SoC but given how funky SD810 is, it’s hard to imagine why would anyone chose the 810 over the 620.
- balcobomber25
  June 23, 2015
  I can’t see a MI5 with a midrange SoC, maybe a Mi5i 6 months from now. But the Mi5 will either have a SD810 (which would force me to buy the MX5) or another flagship SoC.
  - Guaire
    June 24, 2015
    Except Exynos chips there isn’t another high-end mobile SoC for phones. I don’t think Samsung would share S6’s best weapon with it’s any competitor.
    Tegra X1’s TDP is too high for smartphones and considering die size probably is uber expensive. Maybe they could fit it in a smartphone with underclocking, but it seems to me highly unlikely.
    Helio X10 is another upper mid-range chip and Helio X20 will be ready end of the year at best.
    They can try their luck with SD810 or take the SD808 route just like LG did or they can wait for end of the year for arriving of new chips while Mi4 getting older and older.
    - balcobomber25
      June 24, 2015
      There is the SD 810 which is the Mi Note Pro and will probably be the chip they use. The X10 is a much better chip than 615 but Xiaomi doesn’t like MTK chips for their flagships.

Report: Xiaomi shipped 35 million smartphones in H1 2015 already

Yash Garg

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