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Xiaomi Revenues Were Flat in 2015 (fortune.com)
Scott Cendrowski, reporting for Fortune: Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker and second highest-valued startup in the world at $45 billion, barely grew sales at all last year. Revenue for 2015 reached 78 billion yuan ($12.5 billion), a 5% rise from 2014's 74.3 billion yuan. Taking into account the falling value of the Chinese currency, the yuan, sales rose 3% in U.S. dollar terms. Xiaomi has been mum about the 2015 sales total since founder Lei Jun gave a revenue target of 100 billion yuan ($16 billion at the time) at a government meeting in March last year. Flat sales growth represents a dramatic change of fortune for Xiaomi, which until recently appeared to be enjoying the momentum befitting China's hottest startup. It was coming off sales growth of 135% in 2014, and in early 2015 founder Lei Jun said at a press conference that Xiaomi's new smartphone was even better than Apple's iPhone. However the phone, the Mi Note, amassed early user complaints about hot temperatures and didn't become the mega-seller the company might have hoped.CNBC's Jay Yarrow said "The Apple-killer is dying." For the uninitiated, Xiaomi rose to fame in 2013-14 when the company took the world by storm with its cheap-priced handsets, TVs, speakers, power banks, and cameras. These devices offered top-of-the-line specifications for their respective echelon. The company has been called out before for allegedly copying Apple's iOS design in its MIUI Android-based operating system. In the past two years, Xiaomi has expanded its business to several Asian regions, and intends to sell a number of gadgets in the United States and Europe among other regions starting later this year. The company has also expanded its product portfolio, making weighing scale, rice cooker, suitcase and a range of other items.
Seriously - can at least one tech journalist out there look beyond the stockbroker/analyst/IPO hype and actually, you know, *look* at the company's performance? Even with as little history as Xiaomi had, its officers have had to have at least some experience elsewhere...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Funny, that's not what they say when I ask for a raise.
sales rose 3% in U.S. dollar terms.
the US is perhaps the only company in the world that expects quarterly and yearly earnings to approach 15% in order for performance of a company to be assured. its asinine, and partly why the US was forced to gut their manufacturing sector.
Flat sales growth represents a dramatic change of fortune for Xiaomi
but not a bad one. Remember, this is still the second most valuable tech company were talking about. pump your brakes and realize that sales in the #1 also failed to reach targets.
It was coming off sales growth of 135% in 2014
which one might expect would temper the childlike consternation of Forbes, until you realize these are americans, and their concept of investment and growth as constituents of capitalism lies somewhere between a 1952 hygene PSA and mad max.
CNBC's Jay Yarrow said "The Apple-killer is dying."
He also endorsed a conspiracy theory about the egypt air crash. who fucking cares.
The company has been called out before for allegedly copying Apple's iOS design
whos been copying everything from early microsoft innovation to the design notes for the movie minority report. but lets ignore that and the fact that copyright law is wildly variant from the jackbooted cartel force we know and love in the states.
and intends to sell a number of gadgets in the United States and Europe among other regions starting later this year.
if you had to shit on this company for anything --and it be relevant to slashdot -- then it should be this. Xiaomi has dragged its feet supporting 4g LTE bands in the US. every other year the company that insisted it would have something for the country that has everything, inevitably turned out to disappoint everyone. Maybe its regulatory, maybe its just disinterest, but the lack of a US offering from such a company seems to imply theyre happy with flat revenue and servicing the rest of the world instead. Some companies can be content with stability, just not American companies.
Good people go to bed earlier.
12.5 billions in sales mean "flat"? I guess they would call Apple having "gone flat" if they had not tricked people into buying the Apple Watch last year. Xiaomi makes high-quality products at affordable prices, and with 12.5 billions in sales, investors would be wise to invest.