After the publication of IDC’s statistics, Xiaomi published an announcement that actually, in 2019 Q1, Xiaomi’s smartphone shipment was 27.5 million, which was 600 thousand less than that of 2018 Q1.
Lei Jun, the founder and CEO of Xiaomi. PHOTO: Credit to Xiaomi
Recently, lots of institutions published the smartphone shipment situation in 2019 Q1. According to the statistics data, Xiaomi ranked 4th place, and there’s a large gap between Xiaomi and the first 3 players. According to the data from IDC, in 2019 Q1, the smartphone shipment of Samsung was 71.9 million, Huawei was 59.1 million and Apple was 36.4 million. However, Xiaomi, in 2019 Q1, its smartphone shipment was 25 million, with a YOY decrease rate of 10.2%.
However, Xiaomi officially denied the IDC’s data. After the publication of IDC’s statistics, Xiaomi published an announcement that actually, in 2019 Q1, Xiaomi’s smartphone shipment was 27.5 million, which was 600 thousand less than that of 2018 Q1. In addition, LEI Jun (雷军), the founder and CEO of Xiaomi group, said that under the current situation which the smartphone industry is not optimistic, it is acceptable for Xiaomi to achieve that shipment. Previously, due to the shortage of inventory, Xiaomi’s latest flagship model, Xiaomi 9, used to be sold out several times. The decreasing smartphone shipment would affect Xiaomi’s share price directly, and that’s why Xiaomi replied to IDC’s data immediately.
Currently, the main force that promotes Xiaomi is the Indian market. In 2019 Q1, Xiaomi’s gross smartphone shipment in India was 9.5 million, with a YOY growth rate of 4.3%. In addition, Xiaomi is trying to explore overseas markets, and recently, the first Mi home was established in Chile. With the increasing competition in the smartphone market in China mainland, the overseas market may bring extra opportunities for Xiaomi.
Although Xiaomi ranked 4th place in terms of smartphone shipment, OPPO and Vivo, which were behind of Xiaomi, showed strong competitiveness. In 2019 Q1, the YOY smartphone shipment increasing rate of OPPO and Vivo were 10% and 27%, and their shipment were 26.5 million and 24 million. The gap between Xiaomi and its competitors is narrowing, which brings great pressure to Xiaomi. On the other hand, Huawei’s smartphone shipment improved a lot in 2019 Q1 and reached 59.1 million, which was about 2.05 times of that of Xiaomi. In terms of YOY increasing rate, Huawei’s shipment increased by 50.3% and is close to the world’s smartphone leader, Samsung. With its technology innovation and 5G research and development, Huawei is becoming more recognizable and popular in the world.
IDC replied to Xiaomi’s announcement that they do make a mistake on the report, and they will update the data in next week. However, even with a 27.5 million shipment, it is hard to say that Xiaomi’s achievements are satisfying. In Feb 2019, Xiaomi published Xiaomi 9, and in Mar 2019, Redmi Note 7, which is the flagship model of Redmi was published. With the publication of 2 new models, Xiaomi still fails to maintain its shipment. People used to criticize Xiaomi for its hunger marketing after they failed to buy Xiaomi 9. Previously, LEI Jun said that he will go to Xiaomi’s factory to tighten the screws if the Xiaomi 9’s shipment is less than 1 million in the first month after its publication.