A small Chinese smartphone company is set to topple mobile phone leaders Apple and Samsung.
Xiaomi has debuted the MI3, a smartphone unit that has the look and feel of the iPhone. The model has been slowly getting the nods of even the worst critics in the industry to date, simply because it has managed a feat that even Apple and Samsung has yet to master: release a high-quality smartphone and retail it on a budget.
And what a steal. Priced at $330 in the US, PCMag said this Chinese-made smartphone definitely offers so much more than you are paying for. The phone comes in with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 8274AB 2.3GHz processor for that cutting-edge gaming experience. Its 5-inch IPS stunning display and full HD at 16:9 is a delight to gamers who wishe to play their favorite 3D games. Its dedicated 13MP camera enables you to shoot with amazing precision and picture quality.
When most phone users complain about a short battery life, the phone reportedly boasts of its energy-saving and long battery life. The dual-band Wi-Fi allows owners to get connected with high and reliable Internet speed for your digital lifestyle. This phone is also handsome in the aesthetics department, as Endgadget said it is super thin with a metallic-looking body and is surprisingly light at 145 grams, which makes it easy to hold. Although it does not have LTE, the smartphone does really suit the target market it is trying to capture, which are mostly customers in China, and perhaps the rest of the world who do not wish to shell out more than $700 on iPhone's more affordable but unimpressive iPhone 5C.
Xiaomi's global Vice-President Hugo Barra, and former Googler, aims to make Xiaomi known all over the world. In China today, Mi3, also known as China's 'Apple,' as already outpaced Apple in terms of popularity and sales with and more and more people using the phone. And considering the phone's build quality and price, surely it will demand more attention from its competitors.
However, there's a big question regarding the profitability of Mi3. How can they make such a low-priced, high-end smartphone and earn money for Xiaomi at the same time? Well, Xiaomi has its own unconventional strategy in making profit.
Bloomberg reported that Xiaomi's approach in the smartphone market has been profitable so far. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun told the news outlet about the company's business model, "I feel that we're a very different company from Apple. We're probably more like Amazon's Kindle - to sell hardware at cost and then to stack services and content on top of the hardware."
And just because it is made from China, it doesn't mean that it doesn't know how to take the company globally. The company famously hired Android designer Hugo Barra from Google to be its global vice president, and that the company is already leading in its home market as Apple lags behind.
On the other hand, Indian Express said that one would need to consider the many implications of owning a phone that is still considered foreign in other markets, like in India. Aside from difficulties of acquiring the actual phone (Xiaomi has an auction arrangement with Flipkartm were interested buyers would have to pre-register to purchase the product within a short sales window), the device does not come in with accessories like earphones unlike Apple and Samsung. Moreover, MI3's after-sales service is still very limited at the moment.
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