SHANGHAI: When the charismatic founder of upstart Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi took the stage at an Internet conference, he was open about his ambition: world domination.

“In the next five to 10 years, Xiaomi has the opportunity to become the world’s number one smartphone company,” Lei Jun told the Chinese-organised World Internet Conference.

Xiaomi, which takes its name from the Chinese word for millet, has excelled in China’s cut-throat smartphone market by delivering high-performance products at cheap prices.

In less than five years, the Chinese company has become the world’s number three smartphone vendor, behind only Apple and South Korea’s Samsung, shipping 17.3 million phones in the third quarter of 2014, according to International Data Corp (IDC).

Xiaomi claims sales of more than 61m smartphones last year, up 227 per cent from 2013, with turnover more than doubling to $12 billion.

But critics say the firm has simply copied the look of Apple’s iPhones, thriving because of weak intellectual property protection in China.

Beijing-based Xiaomi has come from nowhere, growing from a 2010 start-up in Zhongguancun — China’s “Silicon Valley” — to a company valued at $45bn after its latest funding round in December, when the founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba Jack Ma was among the investors.

Apple pie

In China, Xiaomi ranks second with a 13.5pc share of the domestic smartphone market, according to consultancy Analysys International.

Samsung is first with 15.4pc and Apple lags at 6.9pc as of the second quarter last year, the latest available figures.

For its part Apple’s products are popular in China, but it has faced problems in the massive market, only linking up with the country’s biggest mobile phone service provider in late 2013.

Xiaomi has launched products outside mainland China in Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as Southeast Asia, but the company suffered a setback in India.

In December, Sweden’s Ericsson won a court order blocking sale of Xiaomi devices in India over patents, Bloomberg News reported.

Wang Jun of Analysys International told AFP: “Even if Xiaomi were able to sort out all of its intellectual property problems in overseas markets, it would still take years for it to overtake Apple’s market position.”

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2015

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