Remember how Xiaomi used to bristle at being compared to Apple? Close to a decade ago, the company’s founder and CEO, Lei Jun, told Reuters in an interview:
If people really want to compare Xiaomi to a foreign company, you can say it looks a bit like Apple. But it’s really more like Amazon with some elements of Google. So take these three companies together and it’s easier to clearly understand what kind of company Xiaomi is. Xiaomi selling mobile phones is like Amazon selling Kindles. So you can understand why we sell them for so cheap.
Back in the day, Lei indicated that Xiaomi’s business strategy was not centered on the sale of smartphones as Apple’s was. Instead, Xiaomi would make its bones selling accessories, making deals with wireless providers, and - wait for it - services.
Flash forward nine-years, and Lei’s declaring his company in a “War of Life and Death” with Apple, though one that seems to be focused on the hardware, not Apple’s growing services segment. A piece from MacRumors has the same Xiaomi CEO telling the South China Morning Post late last week that his company aims to:
“…fully benchmark against Apple in [terms of] product and experience, and become China's biggest high-end brand in the next three years…” (…) He went on to describe competition with Apple in the high-end smartphone segment as “a war of life and death” that Xiaomi must overcome.
Plans for domination are said to include 30,000 retail stores in China in the next three years, up from today’s 10,000 stores. “The company is also investing almost $16 billion in research and development over the next five years,” according to the report.
