Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) has received an open challenge from the Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, which released its flagship Mi Note smartphone at prices much lower than that of iPhone 6 Plus. The cheaper smartphone could hamper the iPhone maker’s efforts to increase its market share in the Chinese market.
Xiaomi released Mi Note Pro smartphone with a 5.7-inch display, Snapdragon 810 processor from QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) and a price tag of $371 for 16GB variant. It is important to consider that Xiaomi is the third-largest global smartphone maker and poses a serious competition for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). The smartphone company finished its last round of funding in December raising $1.1 billion with market evaluation of $45 billion.
While talking about the Mi Note Pro, Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi, said,
“The Mi Note is shorter, thinner and lighter than the iPhone.”
The three-year old smartphone company has been criticized for copying other tech companies but talking about the same, Jun said that the company would have tens of thousands of its patents in the next 10 years or so.
It is important to note that despite of the 8 percent sales drop in Chinese smartphone market, Xiaomi reported net revenue of $11.99 billion, more than double from 2013. The smartphone maker sold over 61 million handsets in 2014 with a 227 percent rise from the previous year.
Upon comparing the highest version of both the devices, Xiaomi’s Mi Note Pro has outmatched Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iPhone 6 Plus at every technical aspect and it sells for $515 against the $849 tag price of iPhone 6 Plus.
What makes it even worrisome for Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) is that Xiaomi is attracting investments from the likes of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), as Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, and Lei Jun discussed potential investment opportunities without any materialization of the deal.
This article has been written by Prakash Pandey.
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