Xiaomi's phones have conquered China – now it's aiming for the rest of the world | Hacker News Reader

Xiaomi's phones have conquered China – now it's aiming for the rest of the world

businessweek.com

32 pointsvidyesh43 comments

From CNET: "Xiaomi's Redmi offers exceptional value for its low price, and blows all other budget handsets out of the water. If you're looking for a cheap Android smartphone without having to compromise performance, look no further." http://www.cnet.com/products/xiaomi-redmi/

I don't know, I'd much rather have a Moto E for $129 than that phone for $135. Looks seriously chunky and vanilla Android is far nicer.

Will give them a nod on the 720p display though.

The Moto E SOC has two relatively slow A7 cores and a slow graphics chip though. Something to keep in mind.

How about the upgrade[1]? The Redmi/hongmi/redrice 1s has a 1.6GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400, rather than the 1.5GHz MediaTek MT6589T

[1] http://www.ishoppstore.com/en/quad-core/4697-xiaomi-red-rice...

When did Businessweek's website start requesting your browser location when you visit it?

about:config

geo.enabled = false

Problem solved.

Thank you.

First time I've seen that too. I said no.

Looks like a solid option, I love it when companies ditch non-integral aspects of their budget to improve functionality or form of their product. That's also why I shop at Aldi, because you get lower prices with the same quality products, at the cost of having to put a quarter into the cart, bag your own items, and even bring your own bags (or use empty boxes).

That said, I've been ditching smart phones lately in favor of dumb phones. Not only is life too short to be attached to a gadget all day long, but you can't beat the price (roughly $7 a month for an emergency mobile phone).

Yes, and whoever creates the most value will (and should) win.

tangent: I've noticed ALDI products are often the same quality - and the same price - as the "generic/home/no name" brands of regular supermarkets. But in nicer packaging. Basically, generic brands are high enough quality these days, but people will pay more for shiny. (I can feel this in myself).

To out-ALDI ALDI, you'd sell generic brands in generic packaging.

My girlfriend got one of these the other day in Singapore. The cash vs tech spec ratio on the thing is much better than the premium handsets and she seems quite smitten for picking up a good deal.

The reason they sell out so quickly is the local phone stores buy them in bulk the minute they're released and add a $20 premium on each set.

I've bought a Huawaei and am very pleased with it (only the camera is crap). In the past I tried different Chinese brands but they were all crap. It seems they worked hard to change that. Huawei and Xiaomi both get great reviews for there low cost phones.

Btw: Xiaomi means something as 'grain of rice'. Meaning that small things still can be big.

You say that like its a promise that keeps going unfulfilled.

I think these is an update that Xiami is is pretty much on track to do what they keep saying it's going to do and putting some more clarity on the how. EG take Xiaomi beyond China and into Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, India, and five countries in Southeast Asia.

It's a status update.

Online only selling mode is proving to be a good one. In India Motorola tried that with an exclusive deal with online retailer Flipkart for Moto G and it was an instant hit. More on quality less on Stores and Ad.

In international market it would be tough to compete with phone with Android OS.

Great! I'm all for more cheap high-spec Android phones! I would buy one.

Feels like i have read the exact same thing half a year ago and half a year before that. We have seen countless times that what works in asia doesn't always work in the rest of the world and vice versa. Last i heard was that iPhones sell very well in China though :)

The sell very well if you forget there are a billion people. They sell really badly if you take that into account.

I hope they come up with a name that's easy to pronounce if they do.

I also doubt they will do well in the rest of the world for the same reason Huawei aren't - lack of trustability.

Based on my circle, Huawei is not insignificant and getting traction. Cheap and reliable is a good way to start.

I have a Huawei Ascend P1 LTE. It's certainly cheap. I wouldn't describe it as reliable; it was very prone to locking up if you disabled and later re-enabled the wifi. They released an OTA firmware update which mostly fixed this, but now the screen is starting to blister in a few places.

Huawei are after business contracts.

Xiaomi (Show (as in shower) me) are after consumer market. I think they will have better success

Xiaomi (Show (as in shower) me)

That's how Hugo Barra described it, but listening to the pronunciation of "Xiao", it doesn't sound exactly right - you lose the sound of the 'i'.

Happily, reading it as a Portuguese word sounds exactly like the Chinese seem to pronounce it.

Depends on which part of china.

Xi is typicial a Si (like italian) mixed with a soft sh (like shoosh). Northerners emphasis the "sh" more southerners emphasis the "Si". I believe the 'correct' should be somewhere in between.

They own the domain mi.com, so perhaps just 'Mi'? That's easy to pronounce.

I don't understand, how can that be a problem in Latin America or Africa?

Chinese phones, electronics and cars do very well in my country (China displaced the U.S. as our main trade partner some time ago).

Plus the U.S. isn't exactly "trustable" over here (Japanese and Korean brand might be).

I like their domain, very short, haha.

Any article that begins with a narrative is manipulative tripe and not worth reading.

When did capturing the reader's attention become "manipulative tripe?" The goal of any piece of writing is to persuade and convince. Opening with an engaging anecdote is a time-tested tool for bringing readers into a piece. Writers have been doing this for centuries. Would you rather the author reduce the article to a list of bullet points?

Also grammatical mistakes like "an historic".

That's not a clear-cut mistake, and in my opinion totally forgivable. http://www.betterwritingskills.com/tip-w005.html

Most people, including Americans, pronounce historic as historic, not 'istoric.

Northern UK here. "An' istoric" is very common in informal speech, even in the south but more so in these parts, but I wouldn't expect to see it written that way.

Thanks for the link.

I didn't knew why I always used 'an hour' instead of 'a hour' but that's what I was taught. The link explains a lot.

People keep correcting me for typing 'an hour' instead of 'a hour'.

So it seems when writing in English for a French audience that using more often "an" would lend "an helping hand" to understanding (by supporting the internal voice)

Only if it is literally pronounced as 'istoric. AFAIK there are no accents that do that other than maybe a few northern areas of the UK.

http://grammarpartyblog.com/2011/01/10/an-historical-event-i...

> Now It's Aiming for the Rest of the World

More like getting sued in the rest of the world.

Samsung seems to be doing just fine ;)

If Samsung == Copy, Xiami == Rip Off.

There is a reason why Samsung manages to pull that off. [1]

Price-fixing and counter-suing strategy. They always have been using the same disruptive method in every industry they are in. By the time the verdict is out they have mass produced and sold it with huge profits lined up to pay a settlement fee.

1. http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2014/06/apple-samsung-sma...

Why would they get sued?

Some of Apple's patents they've used against other manufacturers are parts of Android, I believe all android manufacturers are paying Microsoft royalties per device too. Xiaomi will need to negotiate deals or risk being sued as they expand their reach.

Not sure companies (Apple/Microsoft) are willing to sue a Chinese company as quickly as a Korean one. Given how the Chinese government could intervene (i.e shut them out of china).

Xiaomi is cheap.

But I hate Android, if they change the OS, maybe I will buy one.

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