Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun wanted to make one thing clear when he spoke at the Summer Davos event in Tianjin on Monday: “Xiaomi was never meant to be just a smartphone vendor.” The company, which rocketed to fame through mega-sales of budget smartphones, is now stepping back from its revenue-driving product, amid a stagnating smartphone market and […]
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Four Chinese Drones You Can’t Miss In 2016
The global commercial drone market is taking off as improvements in technology transform drones from a specialty device into an affordable consumer product. A huge market for consumer drones is blossoming and already, and China is making its mark. Data from state media outlet Xinhua shows that drone exports from China’s hardware hub Shenzhen amounted to $2.7 […]
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Xiaomi Is Expanding Their Smart Transport Empire With Bicycles
After tackling Segway-style smart transport last year, Xiaomi Inc. now has plans to expand further into smart bikes. The company will release a new Xiaomi-brand smart bike in the coming months, according to sources who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. At the same time Xiaomi-backed smart bicycle company IRiding will also release a ‘smart’ bike called the ‘QiCycle’ this week, […]
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Huawei Says They Can Hang On To Growth As Operating Margins Shrink
Huawei, the world’s third largest smartphone brand, posted a 40 percent increase in first quarter sales revenue when they reported their earnings on Monday. The company says they expect to maintain their current growth trajectory throughout the year. Huawei recorded $245.5 billion yuan ($37 billion USD) in revenue during the first six months of 2016, claiming they have managed […]
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Xiaomi-Like Chinese Smartphone Vendor Collapses Amid Cutthroat Competition
The ecosystem that permitted the meteoric rise of Xiaomi’s valuation to over $45 billion no longer exists. A year-long contraction in the Chinese smartphone market has yielded a consolidated field of players struggling to find new inroads to a saturated market, and the latest casualty has fallen. Dakele, or “big coke”, the Chinese smartphone maker that once aimed to emulate Xiaomi, has suspended R&D […]
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This Kickstarter Project Lets You Talk To Your Plants
Giving people the ability to control objects with their voice has typically been the domain of big tech companies: Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple’s Siri. Shenzhen-based hardware company Seeed Studio wants to change that. “You can take a plant and make it something you can talk to,” says Xiaobo Ye, the product manager of ReSpeaker. “Now, raising a plant […]
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Which Hardware Companies Could Put Xiaomi Back On Track In 2016? [Updated]
Xiaomi shipped over 70 million smartphones in 2015, falling short of their annual goal of 80 million unit shipments, while Huawei, who lagged behind by Xiaomi before 2015, announced 100 million annual shipments in December 2015. Xiaomi’s poor performance in smartphone sales may have something to do with their inability to launch a fifth flagship phone in 2015, attributed to issues […]
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Will Chinese Consumers Consider Buying The New iPhone 7? We Asked.
Apple’s having a hard time in China this year. For the first time ever, it reported a decline in year-on-year revenue and lost the iPhone patent case. Beijing also imposed strict rules on online publishing and Apple’s online stores for iBooks and movies were closed in April. China is the largest iPhone market in the world by the number of […]
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Qualcomm Breathes Breath Of Fresh Air Following Xiaomi Licensing Deal
Qualcomm Incorporated stock has leapt over 5 percent, the biggest single-day increase in four years, following news that they have settled new 3G and 4G license patent agreements with Xiaomi. It’s a relief for the California-based chipmaker, which has seen its stock decline heavily in 2015 over licensing issues and slowing market demand. “We are pleased to reach […]
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China’s Smart Hardware Landscape 2: The Xiaomi Model
Xiaomi’s Mi Band is so far one of the highest-selling wearables, or smart hardware products in general, in China. It announced shipment of 6 million units in June 2015, less than a year after its launch. However despite having the Xiaomi logo on it, the activity tracking wristband was designed and made by Chinese startup Huami in which Xiaomi […]
