Xiaomi Mobile, also touted as the 'Apple' of China, is mulling to expand its smartphones portfolio in the wake of stiff competition especially in homeland China. Currently, Oppo, Huawei and Vivo are the biggest competitors of Xiaomi in China.
Xiaomi has already added the Xiaomi Mi Note 2 and Xiaomi Mi MIX to its smartphone portfolio but the sales have been lower than market expectations in the first quarter of 2017.
Now come up with more midrange and high-end smartphones, beyond what it would normally offer in its devices portfolio to keep up with the many releases from its competitors in China.
"Until 2016, Xiaomi relied only on online channels for smartphone sales which contributes approximately 30 per cent of the total smartphones sales in China, leaving a huge chunk of the market untapped. Its competitors invested heavily in building strong offline channels, expanding their reach to tier-2 and tier-3 cities and moving ahead of Xiaomi," said Shobhit Srivastava, Research Analyst, Mobile Devices and Ecosystems at market research firm Counterpoint Research.
Xiaomi's key markets have been China and India, Xiaomi Mi5 and Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 get more than 95 per cent shipment share. While performance in India improved in 2016, the company lost market share in China resulting in the decline of overall global smartphone ranking.
