Xiaomi sold 34.7 million handsets in the first half of the year, 33% growth over the same period last year. The company's founder and CEO Lei Jun said in March that it is targeting sales of 80 to 100 million units for the year, meaning that it has to ship out 45.3 million in the second half, an increase of 30% from the first half.
According to Gartner chief analyst Lu Junkuan, the handset maker sold 26.11 million units in the first half of last year and 35.01 million in the second, representing 34% growth compared with the first half of last year. Xiaomi's growth bottleneck may be closer than expected, Lu said.
Xiaomi's hardware designs as well as marketing and sales models are now being followed by rivals, making the bottleneck inevitable. Huawei has launched its Honor series for the high-end smartphone market while Meizu came out with the Meilan Note and Lenovo the Lemon K3 Note to compete with Xiaomi's Redmi Note smartphones.
According to Xiaomi's data, the Redmi 2, priced at 699 yuan (US$109), is the company's best-selling model. Since its debut in January, over 10 million Redmi 2 smartphones had been sold as of June, an average of 2 million units per month. The 799 yuan (US$125) Redmi Note has seen sales of 20 million units since it launched 18 months ago. Redmi series models have contributed nearly 80% of Xiaomi's total sales.
While Xiaomi has scored a major hit with the Redmi series, other similar smartphones have been gaining ground. Lenovo has sold around 8 million of the Lemon K3 while Meizu has sold over 5 million of the Meilan Note and Huawei's Honor 4X sales have surpassed 6 million since its launch, said the report.
Xiaomi did not sell as many phones in the over-1,000 yuan (US$157) segment. According to data from China Mobile, the 1,999 yuan (US$313) Mi 4 smartphone released in July 2014 has sold around 1.4 million units as of June on China Mobile's platform, accounting for 20% of all the Xiaomi models during the period. Xiaomi has not yet published sales figures for the Xiaomi Note, which is priced at 2,999 yuan (US$470).
The biggest change Xiaomi has brought to the smartphone market in China is online selling, Lu said. Before Xiaomi's appearance, online smartphone sales in China were negligible but its success has meant that every smartphone company now has their own online platform and smartphone sales over the internet account for more than 30% of the market.
Xiaomi has been moving beyond the smartphone since a year ago. CEO Lei Jun set its strategy as "connect everything through the smartphone" and started to build a system on the Internet of Things (IoT), launching different appliances including TVs, routers, air purifiers, connectors and smart bracelets, among others.
Xiaomi is likely to be valued at US$45 billion by investors, who will not allow the fast-growing company to slow down its pace of growth, the report said.
Source: Want China Times
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