Now Flying High in China, How Soon Can Xiaomi Conquer the World and Depose Apple?

Xiaomi Inc maybe only three years old in business in China, but the fact it has managed to snag Apple's market share, never mind if its products are mostly knock-offs, could be an indication it could also very well conquer the world soon.

Although it has limited resources, Xiaomi managed to capture some of Apple's users that technology consultancy Canalys disclosed the firm during the second quarter sold more phones than Apple in China, ultimately capturing the No. 6 spot, while Apple settled at No. 7.

"What they really excel at is understanding the user behavior of Chinese consumers," Nicole Peng, China research director at Canalys, was quoted by CNN Money. Ms Peng noted consumers are encouraged to communicate with Xiaomi engineers, and vice versa. The feedback mechanism seems to work well because Xiaomi updates weekly its Android operating system.

"Consumers feel they have the capability to contribute. That works very, very well in China."

The Chinese are known for being tight-fisted and it is no wonder that knock-offs such as Xiaomi's products sell well in the country.

Such as in the case of its low-cost smartphone called "red rice," its very latest offering, which the Chinese telecom firm boasted the first batch of 100,000 units sold in just within 90 seconds.

Its price was a measly $130 per unit.

And then Xiaomi shocked the world when it announced in late August that it had managed to snag Hugo Barra, Google's vice president, who will go onboard the Chinese firm effective October. It doesn't take much of one's imagination to work that Xiaomi will very soon enter the global telecom smartphone market arena.

"The relationship is going to be pretty powerful for both of them, and obviously globally, in terms of helping Xiaomi to establish itself internationally," Rachel Lashford, vice president of Canalys, had said.