This April marked the tenth anniversary of Xiaomi as a company, and it’s been quite a decade for the Beijing-headquartered tech firm. Beginning as a maker of budget phones, Xiaomi quickly generated buzz—and startup funding—for its online-first strategy. Within a couple of years the company was garnering gushy profiles from the west hailing it as the “Apple of China.” But there was a rough stretch around the mid-2010s when rival BBK Electronics used an offline brick-and-mortar strategy to overtake Xiaomi in market share. Realizing offline retail is still important, Xiaomi bounced back by opening a slew of Mi Home stores, selling a whole ecosystem of smart items ranging from laptops to rice cookers. Eventually, Xiaomi filed a successful IPO, expanded to Europe, and is now the number one phone brand.
Owww cool