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back to article Xiaomi: Hidden Android dragon is growing fast, despite being unknown in the West

Xiaomi - the fastest growing mobile phone manufacturer - is now Number Three in China and setting its sights on the top spot. The company has said through its blog that it sold 26.11 million phones in the first six months of the year and has set a target of 60m phones for the full year. The figure shows extraordinary growth …

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  1. Jonathan Richards 1

    Should be popular with budgerigars

    According to Google Translate Xiaomi (小米) translates as millet. No stranger than Apple(R), I guess.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Should be popular with budgerigars

      Good translation. The individual characters are literally "small rice". It's also phonetically similar to "小蜜", which means "mistress". Make of that what you will :-)

      0 0 Reply
  2. Combustable Lemon

    I think that video melted my brain.

    0 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Let them come

    Anything better than Samsung and their overpriced, poorly-built garbage.

    3 11 Reply
    1. chr0m4t1c
      Reply Icon
      Joke

      Re: Let them come

      If even the commentards are getting Samsung and Apple mixed up, maybe those design lawsuits had merit after all.

      8 2 Reply
      1. Jess
        Reply Icon

        Re: Let them come

        Since when were Apple devices poorly built?

        2 0 Reply
        1. DropBear
          Reply Icon

          Re: Let them come

          Since when were Apple devices poorly built?

          I have no idea, but you're definitely holding it wrong.

          3 0 Reply
  4. Roadcrew

    Strategy makes sense....

    ...looks like they're not innovating much yet, just churning out me-too phones with low risk and pretty much guaranteed returns. Building up the war chest and keeping their powder dry.

    Who'd bet against them dominating the industry in (say) five (or ten) years?

    2 0 Reply
    1. Vector
      Reply Icon

      Re: Strategy makes sense....

      "looks like they're not innovating much yet, just churning out me-too phones"

      And that's likely the way it will be for quite some time. It's the PC market all over again. Their innovation will be that they can do what the big boys do for 2/3rds or even 1/2 the price.

      They'll pout about the derivative accusations all the way to the bank.

      0 0 Reply
  5. Stuart Halliday
    Trollface

    Well, maybe then you should review their products in future?

    1 0 Reply
    1. Adam 1
      Reply Icon

      And if they do, perhaps a sentence on their relative competency or otherwise with the unusual use case of "making a telephone call" wouldn't go astray.

      2 0 Reply
  6. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    I own a Chinese phone, it does everything a smart phone should at a fraction of the price of a Western phone, plus it came with a lot of extras that a Western phone maker charges for - protective case, screen protector, car charger, headphone dust plug, keyboard pen, dual SIM, uSD USB adapter ....

    Mines a pint of Pearl River please!!!

    1 0 Reply
    1. sabroni Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      stop boasting

      and post a link then! Got cyanogen for it?

      0 0 Reply
    2. Bassey
      Reply Icon

      > it came with a lot of extras.... keyboard pen

      What's a keyboard pen?

      0 0 Reply
  7. KjetilS

    The interesting thing is that this seemingly unknown handset maker is selling a lot more Android phones than the entire Windows Phone ecosystem does combined.

    I found numbers indicating that Nokia sold 8.8m phones in Q3 2013 and 8.2m phones in Q4 2013, and that was 92% of all Windows Phone sales (source).

    If one does a bit of rounding, this should put the combined sales of all Windows phones at around 10m per quarter.

    Xiaomi seems to have sold 26.11 million phones combined in Q1 and Q2 2014, so one could reasonably assume they sell around 13m phones per quarter.

    1 2 Reply
  8. Gareth.

    Xiaomi

    They've also announced a 4K TV running Android that costs less than £400. Despite the low price, it's had some very good reviews. No news of it making its way over to Blighty sadly.

    0 0 Reply

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