History shows that market is never dominated by a single industry either be it technology or another industry vertical. Whenever any organization dominates the market, its competitor then tries to do things in a better manner to conflict the dominance of first one. Same thing is happening in electronic consumer world especially in smartphone industry. Smartphone industry is mostly dominated by two big electronic giants Apple and Samsung.
It is very challenging for someone, especially who is new to the mobile industry to compete with these two electronic industry giants. But when someone has urge to change things, nothing is impossible for them. Same thing can be said about
Xiaomi, a new rising star in electronic consumer world.
If we talk about Xiaomi Inc., it’s a Chinese electronic company headquartered in Beijing. It is one of China's biggest electronic company that designs, develops, and sells smartphones, mobile apps, and consumer electronics. It would not be wrong in saying that Xiaomi has become China’s largest electronic consumer company. It was started in 2010 by eight partners in Beijing China. Initially it was operating in China but now it has started to expand its business throughout the globe.
Products:Xiaomi world's fastest-growing maker of cell phones. It produces most of the electronic gadgets, apps and operating systems but it gained popularity by launching its Mi range of mobile phones. Initially it started by developing Android-based firmware MIUI in August, 2010 for smartphones and tablet computers based on open-source android operating system. This UI competes IOS’UI and Samsung’s TouchWiz UI.
Image Source: Wikipedia
After launching this product, Xiaomi produced the series of mobile phones one by one. Its mobile series like MI-2 and MI3 has already created buzz in East Asian market like China, India, Russia, and Singapore. According to the recent
news releases Xiaomi has overtaken Samsung in China and has now become a leading smartphone company in China.
Like other electronic consumer companies, Xiaomi Inc. has not limited its production of electronic gadgets only to mobile phones and operating systems but it has already launched various innovative products and services like MiPad, MiWiFi network router, MiBox set-top box, MiCloud cloud storage services, MiTalk messaging service, MIPower Bank external battery.
Xiaomi clearly knows the latest emerging technology trends and where they should actually focus on. Xiaomi is well aware of the fact that innovation is the only way to compete with top leading brands in market. Like other top electronic companies, Xiaomi is also working on Smart TV and wearable devices.
From a
news source, Xiaomi now has ventured into wearable technology and has launched the world’s fitness tracker with the Moniker Mi Band at very affordable price ($13).
When other consumer electronic giants are already heading into wearable technology Xiaomi is not far from them and Xiaomi is ready to give them a tough completion with their inexpensive Mi Band which has battery life of 30 days which is quite impressive and enough to attract customers.
It was not so ever easy for the Xiaomi to grab the attention from all the over the world customers, there was a perfect marketing strategy which made Xiaomi popular around the world.
Marketing Strategy:Xiaomi is well aware of the fact that it’s not possible to compete with top leading brands through a simple way, it’s only possible through adopting some unique concept and methodology. To do this Xiaomi has applied the following approaches in their marketing strategy.
- Quality product at lowest price: Xiaomi knows that in developing countries, price of product is key component for driving business. In developing countries consumers prefer best product at lowest price and Xiaomi is familiar with it. Xiaomi’s philosophy is to develop products with features like other top brands have at lower price.
- Setting longer time duration for gaining profit rather than gaining in shorter time period: The second approach is to keep margin low and gain profit in long run. This is another key tactic to make a brand. There can be two ways to increase profit, fist way is selling low quantity with high margin and second way is selling huge quantity with lowest margin. Xiaomi selected second option to increase number of sales and gain popularity.
- Reducing overhead cost by not owing any physical stores and selling only through online store: The third most important approach is not to have any physical store and leveraging the power of online store. It reduces overhead cost which Xiaomi uses to minimize the product cost for consumer benefits. Xiaomi has partnered with different top online mega-stores in different market places to sell its products online.
- Using social media and word of mouth approach to market their products and keep itself away from traditional marketing approach: Xiaomi has followed another approach to save money and reduce its production cost. Xiaomi has totally boycotted traditional media to market and leveraged the power of word of mouth and social media to market its products. This approach benefited Xiaomi in two ways. One is to reduce the cost of marketing and second is to spread awareness through social media and word of mouth.
- Targeting developing countries: In developing countries people are cost conscious and they prefer quality products at lowest price. And that’s the reason Xiaomi is targeting most of the developing countries such as India, Russia, China, Singapore, Brazil and more.
Xiaomi in News:During these days Xiaomi has created buzz in media all around the world because of its Smartphone success in China. Xiaomi’s unique approach is to create and market products and make itself a leading smartphone brand in China. Many top news source like
BBC,
The New York Times, and
Bloomberg have highlighted in their news that Xiaomi has overtaken Samsung in China.
Xiaomi is booming in developing countries and expanding its business all cross the world. Where it’s good for consumers to purchase products at low price same there it could be bad for its competitors like Apple and Samsung to lose their market share of smartphones. The way Xiaomi has adopted well in the smartphone market would not be wrong to say that Xiaomi is soon going to be a leading global brand in smartphone industry. As far as other consumer electronics giants are considered it has already overtaken Samsung in China. At this moment Xiaomi is at initial stage and can’t be said anything confidently about its future and where it will take the turn.
Do you think Xiaomi will be a leading global brand in Smartphone market in near future? Please share your views in comment section.
Image credited: Wikipedia(Omnie Solutions is an enterprise application development company providing custom web and enterprise mobile application development services to global business. Omnie Solutions has extensive experience and expertise in developing multi-device mobile applications and niche apps on various platforms like Android, iOS, and Blackberry. Follow Omnie Solutions on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.)
