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Xiaomi targets niche smartphone market as growth slows down
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A report released by IDC in late April showed that both Xiaomi and Lenovo has been pushed out of the top five vendors club globally, eclipsed by Vivo and OPPO. (Shutterstock.com/d8nn)
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hina's smartphone vendor Xiaomi launched a 6.44-inch smartphone Mi Max on Tuesday targeting game players, video lovers and business people.
Users who spend five to six hours on their handsets will find this smartphone appealing as it has a large screen, which is good for eyes, said Lei Jun, founder of Xiaomi.
Di Jin, research manager of International Data Corporation China, said that such a large-screen smartphone is not targeted at mass market as it is not easy to carry it.
But it would attract users who want larger screen to fit for their using habits, she said.
She noted that the whole market is slowing and Xiaomi has also been losing momentum over the past quarters although it managed to retain its No 1 position at the home market last year.
A report released by IDC in late April showed that both Xiaomi and Lenovo has been pushed out of the top five vendors club globally, eclipsed by Vivo and OPPO. Vendors shipped a total of 334.9 million smartphones worldwide in the first quarter of this year, up slightly from the 334.3 million units in the same period last year. However, the research company said it cannot disclose Xiaomi's shipment in the first three months at this moment, but added that it saw a drop quarter on quarter.
(Read also: Huawei set to challenge Apple in high-end smartphone markets)
Hong Feng, who is in charge of developing Xiaomi's user interface MIUI, highlighted features of MIUI 8 before Lei launched the Mi Max. The new operating system would allow users to screenshot beyond the screen for the whole story, to scan a product for instant online shopping and to save the full-pixel photos on the cloud and smaller versions on the handset.
More importantly, Xiaomi rolled out its own font, Xiaomi Lanting, following Apple and Google, to offer a better mobile reading experience.
The MIUI, which is Xiaomi's first product, now has 200 million users, said Lei. The custom-built Android-based operating system, coupled with Xiaomi's various smartphones, powers up Xiaomi's dream as a mobile internet platform, he said.
