Re: Xiaomi Has A Bold Plan To Make 5G Phones Affordable In 2020
Kuldip Mansager
Xiaomi is not holding back with its K series on its smartphone releases as it recently unveiled that it would release more than one variant of the Redmi K40 that features the Snapdragon 888 chipset, coming soon for release. The Chinese smartphone's K series is known to be its sub-brand and mid-tier smartphone but would have multiple releases, as opposed to the usual trends.
The Beijing-based consumer electronics company, Xiaomi, is making a bold move with its mid-tier smartphone which its executives have teased and leaked to the public, with the release of 2021's Redmi K40 Series. Despite its mid-tier status, it would feature some of the top specs an Android smartphone has seen, making it one of the best budget smartphones available.
Xiaomi is known for making bold options for its smartphones and offering them for a cheaper price tag compared to its competitors. The Chinese company's rise to prominence was based on the foundation of making top-quality consumer electronics product, and its focus on its smartphones, cheap and affordable, but still ensuring the specifications of an expensive one.
According to News 18, Redmi Product Director Wang Teng Thomas revealed the plans of the company for a multiple variant release of the Redmi K40 series, in response to another executive of Xiaomi's sub-brand. The email was forwarded to Redmi General Manager Lu Weibing.
Weibing has recently revealed that the K40, despite being a mid-tier smartphone, would feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset, which is commonly used for flagship releases of the company. The 5G chip was confirmed for the Redmi K40 Series, along with a rumor that says another smartphone would be releasing, containing the Snapdragon 888 Chipset.
According to Gizmochina, the specs of the Redmi K40 is not yet officially revealed by Xiaomi, apart from its Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Chipset, Quad Camera setup, 33W Fast Charging, and a USB Type-C Port. It would also have the "hole punch cutout" on its front panel as part of its new design for the mid-tier smartphone from Xiaomi.
The teaser of the smartphone was unveiled and teased on Chinese social media, Weibo, and has revealed several of the specs to be expected as the Redmi K40 releases. The release date is scheduled for February 2021 but has not clarified the exact date, or whether it would happen early, middle, or towards the end of the month.
You turn on your brand-new smartphone, and the home screen is chock-full of different functions, tools, and apps, sometimes even third-party ones, and you're left wondering "wait, is this a second-hand phone?". The lack of bloatware is one reason so many people love stock Android.
I don't review iPhones, and I haven't owned one since a second-hand iPhone 6 I inherited from my mum about a hundred years ago. I just got an iPhone 13 Pro though, to do a camera comparison with the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, and saw something I totally didn't expect: a horrible amount of bloatware.
The first page is super busy with stuff like FaceTime, Apple TV, Maps, Health, News, Podcasts, Wallet, Reminders, and the apps even spill onto a second home page with Books, Translate, Stocks, Tips, whatever Shortcuts is, Home, Find My, iTunes Store, and a folder with even more apps in it.
Loads of these pre-installed apps make the bold assumption that I'm already deep into the Apple ecosystem. Things like Apple TV, Home and Watch all assume I've already given the company plenty of my money.
Apple really needs to take a leaf out of Google's book by combining these apps too. Why can't TV, Podcasts, iTunes Store and Books all be combined into one, like how Google Play covers most of these functions? Having them as separate apps just results in a cluttered screen.
I know not everyone will agree with this - some people think that Apple can do no wrong, that everything they do is holy. But while my exclamation upon booting up the iPhone 13 Pro started with 'Holy...' it finished quite differently.
But why don't people call out Apple for its bloatware? Many people criticize Chinese phones for their pre-installed apps, but most I've tested have fewer pre-installed ones than this, and even those brands aren't cheeky enough to try and sell you more devices like Watch or Home does.
Stock Android feels like a clean meadow in comparison. Even though Google has quite a few apps, they're all hidden in one folder on the home screen, and Google doesn't pre-install all its apps either.
Knowing what iPhone users are okay with, I'm certainly going to be more lenient on Chinese manufacturers and their pre-installed apps going forward. And if you're an iPhone user who assumes that this mess of pre-installed apps is the norm for smartphones: pick up an Android, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Tom Bedford was deputy phones editor on TechRadar until late 2022, having worked his way up from staff writer. Though he specialized in phones and tablets, he also took on other tech like electric scooters, smartwatches, fitness, mobile gaming and more. He is based in London, UK and now works for the entertainment site What To Watch.\n\nHe graduated in American Literature and Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. Prior to working on TechRadar, he freelanced in tech, gaming and entertainment, and also spent many years working as a mixologist."}), " -0-7/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Tom BedfordSocial Links NavigationContributorTom Bedford was deputy phones editor on TechRadar until late 2022, having worked his way up from staff writer. Though he specialized in phones and tablets, he also took on other tech like electric scooters, smartwatches, fitness, mobile gaming and more. He is based in London, UK and now works for the entertainment site What To Watch.
He graduated in American Literature and Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. Prior to working on TechRadar, he freelanced in tech, gaming and entertainment, and also spent many years working as a mixologist.
As a result, it lost its Chinese market share in smartphones to companies like Oppo, Vivo, and Huawei. Xiaomi soon realized that the Chinese smartphone market had saturated and to continue growing, it needs to expand globally into other markets.
In 2012, the sales numbers increased by 2400%, with the launch of Xiaomi 2S and 2A models, which were a significant improvement over its predecessors. With the addition of flagship models with improved features at stunningly low costs, the sales soared exponentially and by the end of 2013, Xiaomi was valued at $10 billion.
In 2014, Xiaomi took the smartphone world by storm by introducing flash online sales and a sleek marketing strategy. In India alone, they claimed to have sold 1 million smartphones by partnering with Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart.
These marketing tactics were a huge success, as Xiaomi sold over 61 million phones in 2014, whilst earning the third spot on the list of biggest smartphone makers on a global scale. By the end of 2014, Xiaomi was valued at 45 billion dollars making it the most valuable startup in the world.
The table for Xiaomi started turning further in the second quarter of 2015 when Huawei toppled it as a top smartphone vendor in the Chinese market. Looking back at the global sales data from the first quarter of 2015, the situation was imminent.
The then most valuable startup in the world knew well that global expansion was the key to achieving the top spot. If they wanted to soar higher in the consumer electronics market, they needed to expand beyond China, especially in the USA.
Before reaching its Zenith, Xiaomi had already forayed into other Asian markets including Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and India, with plans to expand to other international markets as well.
Earlier, the company had slowed down its expansion plans in order to learn more about each market it entered. But that was no longer the case. Xiaomi entered the swift expansion mode. In November 2015, they expanded sales to the African continent: specifically Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa.
Xiaomi even succeeded in penetrating the US and European markets via its online MI store albeit limiting sales to smartphone accessories and activity trackers. The move (limiting sales of handsets in the US market), though marketed as a precursor to gauge the reaction of consumers, had a big reason beneath it: The lack of patents.
With all these factors in mind, and to find answers to few questions we had, we accessed the patent portfolio of Xiaomi, which has been filing patents since 2009, to see what the Chinese company is up to in terms of innovation.
All of the patents appearing in its portfolio before 2010, were the result of patent acquisitions and were mostly of US origin. We got curious and decided to dig deep to see the origin of these patents. Our analysis revealed that out of these 652 patents, Intel Corporation was the original owner of the 321 patents.
Europe with 1542 patents is the third country where Xiaomi holds the maximum of its patents, followed by Japan at the fourth spot with 933 patents. Interestingly, in our previous update of this article, Xiaomi only had 408 patents in Europe with no news about when they were planning to enter the market.
Xiaomi earlier was only selling accessories like headphones, fitness bands, and power banks since May 2015 in Europe using their retail stores. One could say that it was an attempt to build the market interest until they could get their hands on a stronger patent portfolio to finally make a big splash using their smartphones.
In December 2019, Xiaomi made its foray into the Japanese markets, by launching the Mi Note 10 series of smartphones. The company had pumped up its patent arsenal well in the last few years before entering the market. Back in 2016, Xiaomi had only 172 Japanese patents, while they have over 1000 patents now. Being a neighboring country, it makes sense for Xiaomi to secure its inventions there as Japan could prove a valuable market especially when Sony is struggling in its smartphone business.
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