“FROM the beginning, Xiaomi has considered the mobile phone to be a converged gadget of software, internet services and hardware, not just a simple device.” So declared Lei Jun, the charismatic founder of Xiaomi, a Chinese smartphone-maker with global aspirations, during a recent meeting at his firm’s headquarters in Beijing with Choi Yang-hee, South Korea’s telecoms minister.
Bland as Mr Lei’s comments may sound, the meeting revealed something important about Xiaomi. That a South Korean minister would deign to visit a Chinese tech firm which until recently was barely known outside its home country, let alone sit through such a lecture, is telling. Such has been the Korean hubris over the prowess of its chaebol—most notably Samsung, the world’s leading mobile-phone firm—that the scene would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. It shows how worried Samsung is of being upended by what another South Korean minister has called the “Xiaomi shock”.
To see what he means, consider what the firm has accomplished since its first phone was launched four years ago. Its worldwide sales were 61m...
from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1BAgmVN
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