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Xiaomi
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Explainer | How Xiaomi went from China’s hottest smartphone start-up to lifestyle brand

  • Xiaomi got its start by cultivating an avid fan base with its MIUI Android software, quickly incorporating highly demanded features
  • After becoming China’s hottest start-up, Xiaomi transformed itself into a lifestyle brand a la Japan’s Muji

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The logo of Xiaomi is seen inside the company’s office in Bengaluru, India, on January 18, 2018. Xiaomi has risen from a software maker with a dedicated fan base to the biggest Chinese smartphone brand in the world. Photo: Reuters
Matt Haldane
Before seemingly every Chinese smartphone brand was chasing “flagship killer” status with high-end handsets at shockingly low prices, Xiaomi was there first.

In the span of just a few years after its founding in 2010, Xiaomi became China’s top smartphone maker and one of the country’s most valuable start-ups, aided in part by its hunger-marketing tactics of selling limited batches of phones.

But by 2016, the company’s lustre started to fade as it focused on lifestyle products that included smart devices like wearables and not-so-smart products like luggage and umbrellas.

It was then overtaken in handsets by its larger competitor Huawei Technologies Co and rival upstarts like Oppo and Vivo, both owned by the Dongguan-based conglomerate BBK Electronics.

Now Xiaomi is back on top, and the company has lofty ambitions, with its first electric car in the pipeline. Here is a look at the rise and fall and rise of Xiaomi.

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How did Xiaomi get started?

Xiaomi was founded in Beijing in 2010 by a cohort of six people, led by 51-year-old entrepreneur Lei Jun, who remains the company’s CEO.

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