Wang Xiang, the Senior Vice President of Xiaomi, speaks about the company’s achievements in 2017 and the way forward for 2018
Wang Xiang, the Senior Vice President of Xiaomi.
Which technology trends worked in the year 2017?
There were so many exciting technology trends that took off in 2017 – AI, AR, VR, IoT, and smartphone design just to name a few. Xiaomi has been a leader in relentlessly pursuing innovation and we played a key role in delivering many of these cutting-edge technology trends to consumers in 2017.
One trend that really took off this year is the full screen display design on smartphones. In 2017, major handset brands presented full screen display smartphones in succession, but Xiaomi had already pioneered this trend with the launch of Mi MIX in 2016. In 2017, we took a step further by making these innovations mainstream, first with the launch of our full screen display smartphone Mi MIX 2, a gorgeous evolution of Mi MIX, and subsequently with the launch of Redmi 5 and Redmi 5 Plus, which brought full screen display innovations to the RMB 1000 category.
Another really exciting trend is AI. In July this year, we released Mi AI Speaker, a voice-activated smart speaker that serves as a control hub for the company’s smart home products. With voice commands, Mi AI Speaker is able to connect to and control a host of Xiaomi’s smart home devices, which opens up an exciting world for consumers to customize a series of smart scenes at home, making their lives so much more convenient.
The way we apply AI ties in with another maturing technology trend this year, IoT. Connecting AI and IoT will be an exciting trend going forward and we announced a partnership with Baidu recently to apply AI technologies in more real-life scenarios and provide better experiences to users. Our Mi Ecosystem IoT platform has crossed 85 million connected devices, becoming the world’s largest smart hardware platform.
What were your company’s major achievements in 2017?
Although Xiaomi is a very young company, we are growing at an unprecedented pace. According to IDC, as of Q3 2017, we are ranked among the top 5 smartphone companies in the world with YOY growth of 102.6%. We just became the No. 1 smartphone vendor in India in Q3 2017 as per IDC with 23.5% market share. To date, we have presence in more than 60 markets around the world including Spain, our first market in Western Europe. We have opened 264 Mi Home retail stores in China and 158 Authorized Mi Stores with partners across the world.
In 2017, Xiaomi has also achieved remarkable technology breakthroughs. In February, we launched Surge S1, our proprietary chipset designed and developed in-house. We have been unyielding in our pursuit of technological breakthroughs in other smartphone core components such as the camera, screen and battery. In April, we launched Mi 6 that has an optical zoom dual camera setup, which takes exceptional portrait shots. In September, we launched Mi MIX 2, a gorgeous evolution of Mi MIX, the revolutionary concept phone unveiled a year ago.
Which products and solutions were launched / updated by your company this year?
We unveiled the flagship Mi 6 with an optical zoom dual camera setup for amazing photos including portrait shots with an unparalleled background blur effect. With the use of Snapdragon 835 based on the cutting-edge 10nm process, Mi 6 once again raises the bar for smartphone performance.
We released Mi AI Speaker that serves as a smart home control hub. With voice commands, Mi AI Speaker is able to connect to and control a host of Xiaomi’s smart home devices.
In September, we launched Mi MIX 2, a gorgeous evolution of Mi MIX. With Mi MIX 2, we have continued to be a pioneer in full screen display smartphones and redefined the way that users consume content on their devices.
What do you expect from 2018?
Xiaomi will definitely be launching unique products that will steal customers’ hearts. 2018 will become another year of great significance to Xiaomi along its journey into a world-known technology company.
What sort of technologies, products and solutions will you focus on, in 2018?
In 2018, we’d like to talk a bit about AI. Xiaomi has invested in this area for the last two years and we have more than 600 engineers working on AI services and products.
Our Mi AI Speaker, which allows users to control their smart home devices with voice commands and set up smart scenes at home, is a showcase of how technology can impact your life by making it so much more convenient. In 2018, our next flagship smartphone will come with Snapdragon 845, and will also come with a lot of the significant research we’ve done in AI so far.
While we focus on our core products in 2018, we’ll continue investing into a range of companies to provide a rich array of Internet services and hardware products. For Mi Ecosystem, we will incubate and invest in more specialized companies to effectively expand our product line.
Do you see a big growth in the gaming market?
We offer a series of value-added services on our phones such as content, games and Internet finance, especially in China. Gaming is actually playing an important part in Xiaomi’s Internet services, and a significant contributor to our revenue from Internet services. We do expect to see a significant growth in this sector as smartphone penetration increases and people get used to the convenience of playing games on the go.
