Name: How Xiaomi broke out of China to go global | CNBC Reports
Uploaded: 2020-06-08T05:01:08.000Z
Duration: 8 min 50 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Basic passive voice

Today, it's one of the world's most popular smartphones.

So, I've come to its headquarters here in Beijing to understand just how this company

grew so rapidly and how it can maintain its momentum.

Just nine years after it was founded and one year after going public,

the Chinese company became the youngest member of the Fortune Global 500.

The tech giant is best known for its smartphones.

It's the world's fourth most popular smartphone maker, behind Samsung, Huawei and Apple.

Walk into one of Xiaomi's more than 1,000 global stores, and you'll find an array of different devices.

Almost anything you can imagine, they sell here in the Xiaomi store.

I see virtual reality, walkie talkies, this device translates languages, like Chinese to English,

voice assistants and smart home speakers, wearables and even tools.

Since its early days, Xiaomi's founders dreamed of an international footprint.

And now, it's one of a hand full of Chinese companies who have managed to do what many couldn't.

It broke out of its home market and went global.

Xiaomi's headcount has grown from about 100 in 2010 to a whopping 17,000 staff members today.

This is company orientation where employees learn about the corporate history and corporate culture

before they begin in their roles, and just by the looks of it, this is quite a lot of people.

Its global headquarters in Beijing is home to about 12,000 employees.

I've come to Xiaomi's brand-new headquarters and it's so new that you can still see them

putting on the finishing touches around the building and at the base of this lobby

you actually see this, it's the Xiaomi store.

The first thing that I think of when I see this store, well, it reminds me of an Apple Store.

We are different, we are very, very different than Apple.

Xiang Wang is Xiaomi's Global Senior Vice President and head of the company's international business.

Apple is a great company, they do a lot of technology innovation.

We are doing the same, but our model is different.

We want to sell as low as possible instead of selling at a premium price.

That business model originates from Xiaomi's founder, Chinese entrepreneur Lei Jun.

Lei Jun's vision was to create a premium smartphone

that could compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung, but at a more affordable price.

This allowed Xiaomi to tap into China's growing lower end smartphone market,

and it wasn't long before it did the same abroad.

In 2015, six percent of Xiaomi's total revenues came from outside Mainland China.

To eventually have half of its total revenue coming from outside its borders.

Xiaomi has achieved that by expanding into more than 80 markets.

but it's India that is its biggest overseas success story to date.

It launched in the world's second most populous country in 2014 where it held flash sales

You only entered India less than four years ago,

and you've become the number one smartphone maker, how did that happen?

We offer very, very high-performance device, with a very, very affordable price.

Before us, if you want to buy this smartphone, it was very, very expensive.

Our model is to make the best product but sell as low as possible.

That helped Xiaomi pull ahead of Samsung to become India's top smartphone brand in 2018.

While it still holds today, Chinese rival, BBK Electronics, which backs Vivo, Oppo and Realme,

could be challenging Xiaomi's market dominance.

Outside of India and China, there's an additional 400 retail outlets,

including locations in Dubai, Barcelona, London and Mexico City.

We opened our first store in Mexico City and 4,000 people showed up.

Wang argues Xiaomi's fan culture is what helps set the company apart from other low-cost competitors.

From launch events to meet-ups for gadget enthusiasts,

there have been more than 1,000 Xiaomi fan events to date.

Here you have an entire wall dedicated to fans, things that fans have sent to Xiaomi.

A boy and a girl, they met during our fans event.

So the couple in Indonesia met at a Xiaomi event and named their child, Xiaomi.

But the Chinese tech company has had its share of challenges, too,

to losing a trademark case in Europe against Apple over the name of its tablet.

And of course there's the elephant in the room, the United States.

Xiaomi has long-said it plans to expand into the U.S. market,

but those plans seem to be on hold thanks to the U.S.-China trade war.

U.S. President Donald Trump has openly scrutinized Xiaomi's home-grown tech rival,

The U.S. market, there were talks about 2019?

The U.S. market actually is, I think in no doubt, is the most important market, for everyone.

We are still very, very young. The U.S. market is very, very different.

We are working very hard trying to design a product for the U.S. market but still, resources is the big issue.

Xiaomi made its name with the smartphone, but it, like its competitors,

is having to diversify as the smartphone era's peak winds down.

Smartphone shipments have declined for nine consecutive quarters here in China.

So for Xiaomi to continue to grow, it sees its ambitions beyond the smartphone and beyond China.

Actually, we are much more than a smartphone company.

We are the largest consumer IoT brand in the world.

The company is putting much of its energy into the home of the future.

From smart rice cookers to smart door locks,

our homes are going high-tech and Xiaomi wants to ride that wave.

It says it has more than 190 million connected IoT devices.

There's five ways that I can enter through this smart door.

First is through my phone electronically using something like NFC or bluetooth.

And then there's a number pad, where I can input a number,

there's also a traditional keyhole here but I'm going to be super unique and try my fingerprint.

It's also taking on Samsung and LG with the launch of this smart refrigerator,

which can catagorize your groceries, play music and even take notes.

Xiaomi hopes that every room will have one of its AI Smart speakers,

including the bedroom, so the moment I walk in, the lights automatically turn on.

Let's see if she recognizes me with an accent.

I got her to recognize me and she just said, "What's up?"

Earlier when I walked into the room she told me,