Chinese phone Xiaomi Mi4 may beat the highly popular iPhone 6 as the former takes the Chinese market by storm. Despite being relatively new, the Chinese mobile manufacturer was able to compete fairly with the tech giants.
According to a report from UK-based market research company Kantar Worldpanel Comtech, Xiaomi's sales skyrocketed to the total gross of $5.4 billion in the first half of the year earning an overall market share of 21% surpassing Apple's market share of 16% and inching closer to Samsung's market share of 23%.
The Chinese market is very important to tech companies as it served to be the world's biggest market. But there is no sign of slowing down for Xaomi's latest device – Xiaomi Mi4.
At the launching event of the flagship smartphone, Mi4, Xiaomi's chief executive Lei Jun announced that it aimed to challenge the upcoming iPhone 6. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun strategically attacked iPhone 6 by comparing the design and manufacturing process of the Mi4 against the Apple smartphone.
The Mi4 features a 5-inch full-HD screen, a quad-core 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera and 16GB of 64GB of internal memory. The device will also run Xiaomi's custom MIUI operating system, which is a skinned version of Android operating system. The mobiles software also allows for more customization and removes the Android app drawer in favor of putting all the programs on the home screen, similar to what iPhones offered.
The Xiaomi Mi4 costs 1999 yuan or $320, which is almost half of the price of iPhone 5S that costs $650. It is expected that the smartphone will be a great success in China. However, there is no word yet if the smartphone will reach the western shores, especially in the US.
Meanwhile, iPhone 6 is set to take center stage this fall packed with new and improved features. As usual, Apple is still mum about the details of the smartphone.
