It’s finally official, Xiaomi is coming to the shores of Singapore.
Hugo Barra, former Google VP for Android and now vice president for Xiaomi Global, officially announced it through his Google Plus account:
There’s also a Xiaomi Singapore Facebook page being set up, and so far has garnered over 500 likes.
The Chinese sensation smartphone maker, aims to sell 40 million smartphones in 2014, its CEO Lei Jun said. The first batch of its 2014 flagship MI3 smartphone sold 100,000 units in under 90 seconds of going on sale. Xiaomi is going to be one of the companies to watch out for in 2014 as it expands beyond China and disrupts the set business strategies of both global tier one vendors as well as local players in China.
Xiaomi sells more smartphones than Apple in China last year.
Xiaomi sells more smartphones than Apple in China. A Canalys 2013 quarter two rankings put the Apple in seventh place with 4.8% of the Chinese market. Xiaomi, which means “Small Rice,” is one notch above with 5.0%. Apple may be just a shade behind Xiaomi in China, but it is miles from Samsung, which sold 17.6% of the smartphones there last quarter to take the top ranking.
Of course, that was before Apple signed a deal with China Mobile, which will see iPhones coming to 4G and 3G in China this month.
However, the fast growing Chinese company Xiaomi is looking to expand globally, and looks like Singapore is one of its global market to expand its footprints to.
With iPhone experiencing sales dip, coupled with Android’s market share rise in Singapore, Xiaomi’s entry to Singapore is certainly expected to deliver another blow to iPhone’s sales.
Would you get your hands on Xiaomi, the Chinese brand constantly compared to Apple?