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Apple and the iPhone 14 Pro Max were repeatedly mentioned during the event dedicated to the introduction of the new Xiaomi Mix Fold 3 model. During his talk, Xiaomi founder Lei Jun stressed the need to view iPhone as the benchmark for the global high-end mobile phone market, saying this could give them the “chance to catch up and beat it one day.” (via South China Morning Post)
“Competition is extremely fierce in the consumer electronics industry,” Lei said at the event. “Aiming for the high-end [of the smartphone market] forces us to seek breakthroughs in technology, while ensuring our future development and survival.”
The chairman and chief executive then unveiled the company’s new flagship model, the Mix Fold 3, and compared it to Apple’s current top smartphone model, the iPhone 14 Pro Max. The phone features Qulacomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC, 4,800mAh battery, 67W wired fast charging and 50W wireless charging, and a 20-megapixel selfie camera co-engineered by Leica. It cost US$1,240, but the phone reportedly sold-out just minutes after the pre-orders started on Monday.
Despite seeing this early success and citing Apple and iPhone as the standard in the high-end section of the smartphone market, Lei didn’t reiterate the company’s 2021 goal to be the biggest smartphone vendor globally. The company’s position in the smartphone market in China might explain its silence about the matter.
Aside from Apple, the company is also struggling to dethrone other smartphone brands in China. According to an IDC report, the country is dominated by brands like Oppo, Vivo, Huawei, and Honor. The latest StatCounter data also shows that Xiaomi still has a rather insignificant mobile vendor market share of 8.11% compared to Huawei and Apple, which owns 23.02% and 21.58%, respectively.
