Maybe someday, the leadership of Xiaomi (for the winter-spring 2021 period) will be commemorated with a monument. Xiaomi has climbed to 3rd place in smartphone sales. And this achievement belongs to those who buried their ambitions and ego deep in a desk drawer. But they gave consumers from the budget segment the opportunity to buy cool and modern smartphones. The appearance of Lite versions for the Mi flagships, priced at $300-350, turned the mobile device market upside down.
Xiaomi Decides to Compete with Huawei for Customers
It is rumored that all this movement to satisfy the budget segment started with the Huawei brand. The Chinese manufacturer decided to hook the largest market in the world—Russia—on its technology. And to oust competitors, they offered discounts across all their branches in the country—30-50%. As a result, by the end of 2020, sales not only dropped for Android device manufacturers but also for Apple.
Huawei’s management really liked this discount strategy, and the whole world received new and advanced gadgets at bargain prices. Someone threatened the Chinese with sanctions, but most potential buyers rushed to purchase cheap flagships. As it turned out, Google services still work, only in a Chinese version. But that doesn’t matter, as it didn’t affect performance.
New Redmi Note 10 Smartphones Coming Soon
The Xiaomi leadership quickly realized where the wind was blowing from and adopted a policy of lowering prices on all new smartphones. The first to launch was the Xiaomi Mi10T Lite. In some countries, this model can only be purchased by pre-order, waiting in line. The Redmi Note 10 is on the way. These phones will be cheaper than their predecessors (series 8 and 9). An updated and protected POCO will also be released later.
Overall, 2021 promises to bring many surprises to the mobile device market. Basically, there are two development paths: either other manufacturers will also lower their prices, or Xiaomi will be pressured, as was the case with the legendary Huawei. Practice shows that the second option is not very effective. Besides the USA and a couple of European countries, no one else wants to engage in politics or boycott the Chinese. After all, most people want to get affordable and quality products.
