Xiaomi misses handset shipment goal, hit by dependence on slowing Chinese market

Although the numbers aren’t that exact, what they have said is that they were able to sell “over 70 million” devices previous year. That’s up from 61.1 million in 2015, but short of the company’s target of 80-100 million.

Meanwhile, as per the TrendForce report, Chinese smartphone makers took giant strides past year, shipping as many as 539 million units worldwide, with Huawei replacing Lenovo as the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, after Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc. However, doubts crept in about whether it could achieve the low end of that range after it revealed shipments in the first half of the year came in at 34.7 million.

Xiaomi gave no reason as to why the company missed its revised sales forecast but intense competition with rival Huawei Technologies, a slower-growing Chinese smartphone market and changing tastes may offer clues to the company’s lackluster smartphone sales.

A year earlier, the company was in third place. A representative also told us that Xiaomi would not break sales out by region, so we can’t be sure how many phones it sold in China, and how it is performing in emerging markers like India, Indonesia and Brazil – where demand is promising but there’s plenty of competition in the sub-$300 phone bracket.

Growth in sales of smartphones is starting to slow down across China due to the saturation of this market, said an analysts located in Hong Kong.

The company has delayed its expansion in the US and Europe largely because of concerns about intellectual property litigation and license fees in those countries, which will add to cost, Gupta said.

Xiaomi offers an app ecosystem, which has proven to be attractive in China where the Google Play store is banned, but this has not helped the company in India and other markets where Google Play is available, Shah said.