XiaoMi have just changed their international site to www.mi.com.
Is the world ready to accept a Chinese durable consumer brand?
XiaoMi have just changed their international site to www.mi.com.
Is the world ready to accept a Chinese durable consumer brand?
Those 2 letter domain names must be worth a fortune.
Had this conversation with some private equity guys specializing in China a few weeks back. Short answer is, "Yes." One could argue that Haier and Huawei are already accepted worldwide brands, but they're utilitarian, unsexy categories. XiaoMi got a lot of love with the Mi3, but they'll have to change their marketing model to go global. In short, they spend next to nothing on marketing so they can produce a winning specs/price ratio. This is crack to gearheads, but misses the average consumer. With only two handset makers really making any money worldwide XiaoMi has their work cut out.
Last edited by huja; 22-04-2014 at 11:16 PM.
There are a bunch of solid Chinese phone manufacturers out in the market now including Mi, Oppo, Meizu (sp?) just to name a few. Then add in the new oneplusone (or whatever its called).
And then you have the big boys like Huawei and ZTE.
sino orientated/inspired/transliterated names rarely make sense in an international market, all the huawei, geely, won't dent the international markets with names like that
name change to mi is very sensible more
Haier always looks like the favourite to go global. If they had purchased Maytag all those years back they could have made more of an impact in the US than wine coolers and improved the quality of American white goods. They have aquired Sanyo appliances so more penetration in Asia.
Everyone knows phones are made in China (The USA has never had a mobile phone manufacturing capability) so perhaps adoption of a Chinese brand will be easier in this category if kids start to look for features & quality v price.
Last edited by East_coast; 22-04-2014 at 11:28 PM.
Here's your answer - £1 million a letter. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...s-9286548.html