ON TOP OF THE WORLD
In April of 2010the current CEO Lei Jun founded the company with seven other partners Xiaomilaunching the Android-based MIUI operating system. The primo smartphonethe Mi 1, was launched in September of the following year: thanks to high specifications and a price significantly lower than that of Apple and Samsung, it managed to lay the foundations of success in the world of telephony, becoming a true giant ofelectronics consumer and allowing the Chinese company to enter the world of connected devices and home automation.
A little more than 10 years since its foundation, in March 2021, Xiaomi announced its intention to enter the industry automotive. On September 1 of the same year, the Xiaomi Automobile division was founded in Beijing: the road to becoming a home builder of cars had already begun.
The company started immediately recruit different people, from designers to engineers automotive industries, reaching over 1,000 employees in the research and development department alone at the end of 2023. At the same time, a production plant was built, capable of producing more than 300,000 vehicles per year.
ALREADY TWO MODELS
On December 28, 2023, less than three years after the establishment of its automotive division, the Xiaomi presented its first car to the world electricthe saloon SU7: Three months later customers could already order the car, the first units of which were delivered within a few days.
In the first 12 months of production, the electric sedan surpassed the 155,000 sales in China. The success did not lead the company to sit on its laurels, but on the contrary it doubled its offer with the YU7an electric SUV with a style that is in some ways reminiscent of the Ferrari Purosangue and which uses the same one technology of the sedan.
With cars, Xiaomi has used the same strategy which in the past allowed it to conquer the smartphone market: latest generation technology combined with design captivating a prices significantly lower than those of its competitors. In this way, both models achieved results of sales exceeding both expectations and production capacity.
OVERCOME THE BEST
Despite the impressive numbers in China, Xiaomi he doesn’t want to stop to the internal market and the plans for expand activity at an international level. A first signal in this sense is the opening of a research and development center for electric vehicles in Munich, with the aim of entering the German market in 2027.
To do this, the Chinese giant wants learn by the most successful producers in this field: it is no coincidence that Lei Jun himself confessed to having had a Tesla Model Y completely dismantled to analyze every single component of the car: “We want to demonstrate that we can compete and, in some areas, perhaps even surpass them,” said Xiaomi’s number one.
