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Comment by antimagic | Hacker News Reader

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Forbes really should just stop writing tech articles.

1) The article itself notes that Xaiomi's flagship phone is already facing declining sales in China (Apple is still increasing sales there, so who should be worried again?).

2) It's running Android - the closest equivalent product is the Samsung Galaxy S5, surely the headline should be warning Samsung, not Apple (Apple has a nice competitive moat by having their own OS / AppStore ecosystem).

3) Speaking of ecosystems, does this thing have Google Play (I looked on their site, but couldn't get a clear answer - no Google app logos though...)? If not, it's really going to struggle in Western markets.

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>It's running Android - the closest equivalent product is the Samsung Galaxy S5

Kind of. It's running MIUI, which is like an iOS themed android (with some nice added extras, like the ability to block specific permissions on apps).

The closest equivalent product was the moto g. I was about to get one when they brought out the redmi (it's basically the same but cost $130).

>Speaking of ecosystems, does this thing have Google Play

Yep. All works fine for me.

>MIUI, which is like an iOS themed android

I hear this line getting trotted around a lot, mostly from people who have never used MIUI themselves.

MIUI is an "iOS-themed Android" as much as Ubuntu's Unity is an "OS X-themed Linux DE".

>I hear this line getting trotted around a lot, mostly from people who have never used MIUI themselves.

Well, I use it every day.

> surely the headline should be warning Samsung, not Apple

Even then, Xaiomi surely couldn't compete with Samsung on pricing or advertising, given Samsung's huge advantage as a component manufacturer.

Samsung choose margins over industry-changingly competitive pricing though. They price like an iPhone, not a Nexus or from the article a Xiaomi.

And at that, they don't have massively high margins. Their marketing spend is absolutely huge, and would impede them from competing directly on price.

Good point, hadn't thought of that.

Which makes sense for them, given that they can get away with it. They'd be well-placed to win a price war if one started, although it would probably hurt.

They are already competing with Samsung on pricing.

> 3) Speaking of ecosystems, does this thing have Google Play (I looked on their site, but couldn't get a clear answer - no Google app logos though...)? If not, it's really going to struggle in Western markets.

It doesn't. Xiaomi phones ship with MIUI [1], a heavily modified version of Android; also, Xiaomi is not an OHA member. I doubt they will ever get the GMS certificate.

MIUI does has its own Store though, but the store may face real copyright issues outside China...

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIUI

Interestingly, they seem to only stop pre-installing Google Play recently and they claimed that it's due to Chinese policies [1]. According to my knowledge it should be more of Google policies...

In the same link [1] they also provided an (official?) installer for Google Play apps. Again, I'm not sure whether it conforms to Google policies.

1. http://en.miui.com/thread-3998-1-1.html

Apple means clicks/ad displays. Like you said, Android OEMs should be the ones concerned more with this, than Apple.

Xaiomi actually makes good devices, design and spec wise. Android + Google Play + MIUI (iOS look) at prices cheaper than Samsung.

The hardware/design of the latest Xaiomi is very reminiscent of OnePlus One, hmmm.

> 1) The article itself notes that Xaiomi's flagship phone is already facing declining sales in China

Xiaomi is facing an overall reduction of sales of smartphones in China, according to the article, not a reduction in sales of their flagship phone. It may very well be they have problems growing the sales of Mi3 too, but that's not supported by the article.

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