Appearances are certainly deceiving and Xiaomi has over the years caught flak for aping Apple products. CEO Lei Jun - currently China's 23rd richest person by Forbes count - not only has done his fair share of worshipping at the altar of the late Steve Jobs, reading the Apple founder's story since college and carefully cultivating a Steve Jobs image including wearing jeans/dark shirt to work, his company's marketing strategy has been described as riding on the back of the "cult of Apple."
In spite of all the negative press and the uncanny similarities of Xiaomi's products with Apple's, the Chinese tech giant has risen to the top of the heap hailed as the 3rd biggest smartphone distributor worldwide outselling even frontrunners Apple and Samsung in China.
This time around, its newest offering Mi Note is definitely no Apple copycat but from the looks of it is a hybrid Apple-Samsung smartphone, notes Business Insider.
Taking the Lead
Xiaomi may be largely unknown in the Western world, carefully pointing its marketing turrets in Asian countries for now. But so far, it has lionized that side of the world beating even #1 Samsung and #2 Apple in smartphone sales in China in 2014.
And it's upping the ante. Just lately this April, Xiaomi breaks Guiness World Record for mobile phones online sales in its "Mi Fan Fest" selling 2.11 million smartphones in just 2 hours, besting Apple's record in the process.
And like Apple, Xiaomi has a loyal cadre of fans, nurturing the best patron and throwing lavish party events for a select few.
The Samsung/Apple Hybrid
It's not the first time Xiaomi has been bombarded with a lot of flak for being a copycat. Even Apple's design guru Jony Ive is uneasy about Xiaomi's seemingly blatant design steals saying:
"I don't see it as flattery. I see it as theft. I have to be honest. The last think I think is 'Oh, that is flattering ... all those weekends I could've been home with my family' ... I think it's theft and it's lazy. I don't think it's OK at all."
Of course, Xiaomi did not take it sitting down and VP for International Markets Hugo Barra sharply responded:
"If you look at the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 has been using the design language that has been around for a while. The iPhone 6 is using design language that HTC has had for 5 years. You cannot claim full ownership of any kind of design languages in our industry."
To note, Xiaomi may be biding its time not expanding West-ward but its rock-bottom prices reportedly a little above manufacturing expenses should be downright scary for its biggest competitors.
Now, all the copycat trash talk should slowly die down as Xiaomi's latest is neither here nor there - apparently Xiaomi's Mi Note is a Samsung/Apple hybrid.
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