By: Eric Guo
Xiaomi, the world’s third largest cellphone distributor, recently announced a new phone that is comparable to Apple’s iPhone 6.
The Chinese manufacturer’s Mi Note starts at 2,299 ($375) yuan and goes up to 3,299 yuan ($530) for a 64 bit model, which is much less than 5,288 yuan ($865), the price of an iPhone 6 in China. Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi, said that the new Mi Note is lighter and thinner than Apple’s iPhone 6.
Xiaomi was founded on June 6, 2010 and has sold lots of handsets in China since then. The company sold over 60 million phones in 2014 in China, where its phones have been directed. It plans on expanding into India and other markets, but there have been no plans on expanding into North America or Europe.
The Mi Note is equipped with a 13-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization that can be used to take quality pictures. It also has a 5.7-inch screen, which is longer than that of the iPhone 6, with a Snapdragon 801 2.5 GHz processor that powers it. At a convention center in Beijing, Lei Jun gave a side-by-side comparison of the new Mi Note and the iPhone 6, stating that the performance, processing power, and memory size were comparable.
The Mi Note Pro is also a response to Apple’s iPhone 6. The Mi Note Pro is more powerful than the Mi Note, with a 64-bit, 8-core Snapdragon 810 processor and a 4GB RAM. A 64GB Mi Note Pro costs 3,299 yuan ($535), still much cheaper than the iPhone 6 in China.
While the two phones are less expensive than an iPhone 6, the price of the Mi Note and the Mi Note Pro is a relatively new occurrence for the company, which has other phones that cost as little as 699 yuan ($114).
Xiaomi aims to be the biggest smartphone supplier ahead of Samsung and Apple. It has already been the number one supplier of smartphones in China this year, and it hopes to expand to more markets in the future.
