Xiaomi's sales surge in the third quarter
Chinese tech giant Xiaomi is known for budget-friendly smartphones and smart home gadgets.
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The backstory: Chinese tech giant Xiaomi is known for budget-friendly smartphones and smart home gadgets. But the company recently hit a rough patch in the smartphone market, mostly due to lingering COVID impacts and economic uncertainties. People held off on upgrading their phones, and Xiaomi felt the pinch.
But Xiaomi's Mi 14 series has been making waves since its late-October release, raking in over a million orders. This success pumped around US$20 billion back into Xiaomi's market value, helping it recover from a dip in June.
Beyond phones, Xiaomi has also ventured into electric vehicles (EVs) and other sectors, turning the heads of investors, especially with its new EV division.
More recently: In September, Xiaomi and Huawei signed a global patent deal, burying the hatchet on their patent disputes and covering tech, especially in the crucial 5G domain. And last week, Beijing's BAIC Group unit applied for approval to roll out two Xiaomi-branded EV models.
The development: Xiaomi released a financial statement on Monday on its third-quarter performance, and things are looking up for the company. Sales soared to 70.9 billion yuan (US$9.83 billion), smashing expectations. Its net income soared by 183%, reaching 6 billion yuan (US$845.5 million), all thanks to making smarter business moves and cutting down on costs.
Even though the whole industry took a 5% dip, Xiaomi held its ground as China's fifth-largest smartphone brand and did much better than others in the market. The company managed to ship out 9.1 million devices in the last quarter, according to Canalys.
In a recent earnings call, Xiaomi President Lu Weibing gave a virtual high-five to the company’s achievements despite the challenges it faced. He also mentioned that Xiaomi is going full steam ahead with plans to produce a bunch of vehicles by the middle of 2024.
Key comments:
"While we did not encounter many positive external factors, the achievements we were still able to make demonstrate an improvement in our overall capabilities," said Xiaomi President Lu Weibing during an earnings call.
"Sales of the Mi 14 series have exceeded 1 million units and the phones are still in severe short supply," said Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun on Weibo earlier this month.
"We are glad to reach a patent cross-licensing agreement with Huawei. This shows that both parties recognize and respect each other's intellectual property. As part of our commitment to our values around IP, Xiaomi will, as always, respect IP, seek long-term and sustainable IP partnerships for shared success, drive technology inclusion with IP and allow more people to benefit from technology," said Ran Xu, Xiaomi's General Manager of Corporate Business Development and IP Strategy, in a September statement.
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