By Xinmei Shen
Copyright scmp
The initial sales results of Xiaomi’s new 17-series smartphones have “exceeded expectations” so far, according to company founder, chairman and CEO Lei Jun in a Tuesday post on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo.
Beijing-based Xiaomi launched its 17-series smartphones last month, two weeks after Apple introduced its iPhone 17 models.
In a separate Weibo post on Tuesday, Xiaomi’s smartphone business president, Lu Weibing, apologised for the “insufficient stock” of the company’s new flagship handset in the market, which has inconvenienced buyers. On October 2, Lu said more than 1 million units of the Xiaomi 17 had been sold a week after it was released, which surpassed the previous series’ performance.
The latest posts from Xiaomi’s senior executives reflected the company’s confidence in its sharpened focus to compete in premium-priced smartphones, handsets that cost more than US$600, against rivals Apple and Huawei Technologies.
At last month’s product launch, Lei touted that the Xiaomi 17 series already “surpassed the iPhone 17 series in many areas”. That included the latest models’ thin design and a new imaging system, suitable for backlight photography, that was developed through a partnership with German optical giant Leica.
The senior Xiaomi executives lauded the promotional and marketing efforts behind the 17 series in spite of some analysts’ negative sales projections.
Total Xiaomi 17 shipments were expected to be more than 20 per cent lower than the firm’s original plan of 10 million units, falling below the previous Xiaomi 15 series shipments of 8 million units, according to a research note last week from TF International Securities analyst Kuo Ming-chi.
Kuo said the lower shipment forecast was because of “weaker-than-expected” demand for the basic Xiaomi 17 model, compared with the stronger performance of the standard iPhone 17 model.
In an unconventional move, Xiaomi jumped straight to the 17 series after its 15 series was launched in October last year, which signalled its direct challenge to Apple’s latest flagship model.
According to Kuo, Xiaomi would likely face more intense challenges from Apple and Huawei in the premium handset segment. He added that Apple appeared “to have put the worst behind it in China”, while Huawei was expected to improve the app compatibility issues of its self-developed operating system, HarmonyOS Next.
Xiaomi was mainland China’s fourth largest smartphone vendor by shipments, accounting for 15.7 per cent of the market in the June quarter, according to Counterpoint Research. Huawei took the top spot with an 18.1 per cent market share, while Apple ranked fifth with a 14.4 per cent share.