There is no doubting Xiaomi's massive presence among other smartphone manufacturers in China. As the company forecasts to sell a total of 60 million units in Asia by the end of this year, it is currently the top major player in its home turf. Having declared a sum of 18.7 million sales in 2013, they expect to have a highly significant increase this year, as a result of expanding their market in Taiwan, Hongkong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and recently, India.
This may have pressured Lenovo, so to keep up with the times, the company announced last Wednesday that they are in the works of putting up a new and separate "smart device company" by April 2015. The new company name is yet to be announced, but its goal is clear, that is to "attack the fast-growing consumer mobile device market in China," as Lenovo has said in its statement last Wednesday.
This new initiative from Lenovo will take after the way Xiaomi does the selling of their products- that is, an internet-only sales model, for consumers who wish to get hold of their new device. Aside from Xiaomi's popular sales method, Lenovo's new company will likely to sell their new smartphones at a similar price to that of their target competitor. Xiaomi's best-seller mid-range phone Redmi 1S is currently priced at $130, while its flagship phone Mi4 retails at $300.
However, this shouldn't cause an excitement to consumers living outside China as the new business will initially focus on saturating the Chinese market. As Lenovo mentioned in its statement, "software and application development and close customer engagement" is part of their plans to achieve, so it suggests that their apps and services would likely to be only for users in China, at least for now.
We will give you an update on these head to head competition between Xiaomi and Lenovo's new company.
