Xiaomi vastly outgrew all its major rivals in Q4 2017. It solidified the 5th position in global smartphone market by volume. It shipped 27.8 million units of smartphones worldwide this quarter and captured a 7% market share. Driven by its strong performance, Xiaomi is likely to challenge OPPO’s No.4 position in global smartphone market in the upcoming quarters. Xiaomi’s robust performance this quarter is supported by the wide popularity of Redmi series as well as the vendor’s progress in offline channels across the markets.
Region wise, Asia Pacific is the biggest regional market for Xiaomi. Xiaomi officially entered Western Europe in November by bringing two models to Spanish smartphone market. It continued to make progress in Central Eastern Europe, while its presence in Central Latin America and in Africa and Middle East remains modest.
Although China posted a double-digit decline for its smartphone market, Xiaomi managed to grow in its home market with an impressive double-digit YoY growth rate. India remained as the growth engine for the vendor, where Xiaomi topped the market for the first time ever since it entered the market in 2014.
Xiaomi launched two new models this quarter: Redmi 5 and Redmi 5 Plus. They are the successors of Redmi 4, Xiaomi’s hero model in 2017. The 18:9 LCD display and the competitive pricing are the key selling points of the new models. We are optimistic about their shipments, back by their product design and competitive pricing, as well as the vendor’s strengthened offline channel and growing overseas footprints. We expect Redmi 5 and Redmi 5 Plus will be one of best-selling Android smartphone models this year.
Although Xiaomi is outgrowing most vendors for now, we caution its breakneck speed to slow down in 2018, due to the modest contribution of its high-end Mi series and Mix series in its total portfolio. Meanwhile, we expect Xiaomi will encounter intensified competition from its rival such as Huawei in low end segment. We believe Xiaomi will continue its upward track in 2018, but the growth will be slowed down.
Moving forward, the vendor needs to pay special attention on:
- How to manage the conflicts between offline channel and its own pricing philosophy?
- What are similarities and differences between Redmi users and Mi series users? How to generate synergies between its different product lines?
Our latest report Q4 ’17 : XiaoMi: Robust Growth by Volume and Value has been published. Our WSS clients could access our full report via this link.
