The Chinese smartphone and smart home appliances maker Xiaomi announced an increased contribution of the IoT segment and overseas market to its revenues in 2019.
The up-and-coming phone maker Xiaomi (1810:HKEX) has announced its 2019 fourth quarter and annual results on 31 March 2020 under the shadows of the COVID-19. The firm posted a revenue increase of 41.7% year-over-year in its 'IoT and lifestyle products' segment and a jump in overseas revenues with 30.4% in 2019. Meanwhile, its profits slipped by 28%.
The company's overseas revenue was CNY 91.2 billion in 2019, accounting for 44.3% of its total revenue in 2019.
The initial results showed that the company has been adhering to its strategy to be a more IoT and overseas business-driven company, in a move to alleviate the risks of being stuck in the saturated smartphone market of China.
It has long set its sights on the lucrative North African and Southeast Asian countries in the smartphone business and has been investing in IoT chip companies in a move to catch the burgeoning smart home and smart devices business in China.
The company has also mentioned that they were the largest smartphone brand in India by shipments for the tenth consecutive quarter, capturing a market share of approximately 28.7%, showing a third party market research company as the source. Xiaomi has long been competing with Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo in the Indian smartphone market.
The company has also been attacking the market of the Shenzhen-based mobile phone developer Transsion (传音控股, 688036:SH) in Africa.
It has also been investing its "Internet services" segment, which posted around a 24% YoY revenue growth in 2019.
The company has recently drawn attention to itself by temporarily shutting down its offline stores in China and due to Apple's 'revenue warning' in February 2020 due to the pervasive coronavirus.
Xiaomi accepted that it has faced substantial challenges in the first quarter of 2020 by openly admitting the problems in the company's supply chain. The firm has also said that they're optimistic about the Internet services segment in the first quarter of 2020 since people are spending more time at home consuming more of Xiaomi's online services.
COVID-19 has overshadowed the company's 2019 filings and analysts are eyeing the results of the first quarter of 2020 to gauge the phone maker's performance.