Xiaomi CEO aims match Apple for 'product and experience'

The CEO of Chinese smartphone firm Xiaomi has announced an intention to compete "fully" with Apple's iPhone, and described it as "a war of life and death."

Xiaomi has previously outsold both Apple and Samsung in Europe. Now, however, the company is aiming to focus on the top end of the market.

According to the South China Morning Post, Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun, announced the plan on the Weibo social media platform.

"[We aim to] fully benchmark against Apple in [terms of] product and experience, and become China's biggest high-end brand in the next three years," Lei said in a post seen by the publication. In the same post, he described the high-end smartphone market as "a war of life and death."

Lei repeated Xiaomi's previous intention to invest $15.71 billion in research and development over the next five years.

The opportunity for Xiaomi comes as a US ban on Huawei has created room fo competitors. Xiaomi was previously also on the US banned list, but was later removed from it.

38 Comments

laurent_g 3 comments · 2 Years

About 2 years ago

That's an honorable goal that would benefit their customers.
Kudos if they succeed.

blastdoor 3564 comments · 15 Years

They just assemble components made by other companies, so all they need to do is assemble the best components available.

Today the biggest missing piece for Android vendors is the SOC. But Qualcomm's purchase of Nuvia might narrow that gap in a year or two. So all Xiaomi has to do is wait around for Qualcomm to make that new SOC available, buy it, and then put out a press release declaring victory.

They won't match the full Apple ecosystem, but the full ecosystem isn't as relevant for Chinese customers anyway. So, at least in China, I bet Xiaomi achieves something that can pass for their stated goal.

auxio 2762 comments · 19 Years

laurent_g said:

That's an honorable goal that would benefit their customers.

It would truly benefit their customers if they matched Apple's privacy stance.

robin huber 4025 comments · 22 Years

I’m from Missouri and I say, “show me.”

GeorgeBMac 11421 comments · 8 Years

The user experience for most people is mostly based on Apple's ecosystem. For most companies it's not hard to duplicate Apple's hardware (or at least come close enough that most users wouldn't know the difference) -- Samsung does it every year.

But most of the user experience derives from the software and the support and interface structure surrounding the device -- no company can beat Apple as long as they're locked into Android.

The analogy is the companies producing Windows PCs. They can only set themselves apart by hardware and construction quality. But that has a very limited impact on the "user experience" -- which mostly derives from software and ecosystem.

I think Huawei would have a MUCH better chance at beating Apple's ecosystem because, as we forced them to do, they have developed their own modern OS and they spend more on R&D than Apple. But, it doesn't look like they have any intention of fighting that battle.