According to a new report, It looks like 2017 could be a big year for Xiaomi - the company could be set to expand its portfolio of devices in an effort to keep up with the competition in its homeland China.
Xiaomi is looking to beef up its phone portfolio by adding more mid-tier and high-end models this year. The report says that Chinese manufacturers like Vivo and Oppo are putting pressure on Xiaomi because of their broad range of handsets that are released within the country each year.
The news isn’t surprising, but it is interesting. As XDA-Developers notes, only a few years ago Hugo Barra, who at the time was Xiaomi's vice president of international, said that the company was able to keep its prices low by offering a small portfolio and by offering phones with a "longer average selling time." In other words,
"the more focused the portfolio, the more efficient they can be at managing those costs."
Right now, Xiaomi claims the fourth spot in the Cinese smartphone market, with Huawei on top at 76.2 million handsets shipped in 2016. Second place goes to Oppo with 73.2 million handsets shipped, while the third spot goes to Vivo with 63.2 million handsets shipped. Xiaomi will have to increase their portfolio enough to generate more than 10 million new sales to compete with those numbers for 2017.
It will be interesting to keep an eye on Xiaomi this year, especially if these reports prove to be true. Midrange smartphones are becoming increasingly important in smartphone manufacturers’ portfolios, so it certainly makes sense that Xiaomi would want to begin offering more such devices. Now hopefully the company will make more of a push in the U.S.
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