Xiaomi entered the Indian smartphone market on July 15, 2014, in partnership with Flipkart to sell its smartphone Mi 3. It was an exclusive partnership and the Mi phones were sold out within 30 minutes on the very first day. Xiaomi is the current smartphone leader in the Indian market and has been holding this position for quite some time now.
We all know that apart from smartphones they also have various appliances and lifestyle products from shoes to Smart TV. Here are a few interesting things about them which you probably didn’t know.
- The name Xiaomi is the Chinese word for millet. Xiao means little and Mi means rice/millet in Mandarin. The CEO linked the “Xiao” part to the Buddhist concept that “a single grain of rice of a Buddhist is as great as a mountain”, suggesting that Xiaomi wants to work from the little things, instead of starting by striving for perfection.
- The logo MI is an acronym for Mobile Internet and also “mission impossible“, referring to the obstacles encountered in starting the company. If you flip this logo MI becomes the Chinese symbol for the heart (心).
- Xiaomi has an mascot and it is a bunny named Mitu who wears an Ushanka (Lei Feng hat).
- Xiaomi has signed a collaboration deal with Nokia in 2017 which allows both the companies to use each other’s patents.
- The first product they built was not a smartphone but MIUI an android based firmware on August 16, 2010. The first smartphone was launched in August 2011 named Xiaomi Mi 1.
- The internet domain mi.com which replaced xiaomi.com as the official Xiaomi domain was purchased for an astonishing amount of US$3.6 million.
- Xiaomi entered the Guinness World Record on April 8, 2015 after selling 2.11 million smartphones in 24 hours.
Xiaomi has been pushing boundaries in technology and innovation and it seems like they would like to retain the smartphone market leader position in coming years as well.
Written By- Prateek Dwivedi
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