Xiaomi may miss its smartphone sales targets this year

All signs point to a year of less-than-impressive growth from China's once-white-hot smartphone start-up, reports Tech in Asia

Last year, Xiaomi gave itself the goal of selling 100 million phones in 2015. By March, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun had revised this year’s goal to 80 from 100 million units. In July, the company announced that it had sold 34.7 million smartphones in the first half of the year, putting it on track to possibly miss even the lower end of Lei Jun’s revised target.

Now, there are additional signs that even 80 million might be optimistic. Taiwan-based research firm Trendforce just released a report suggesting that Xiaomi is on track to sell around 70 million smartphones this year.

Xiaomi hasn’t yet confirmed any official Q3 sales numbers.

What’s causing the slowdown? Here are a few likely factors:

Increased competition: When it first came out, Xiaomi was the company doing lower-cost, higher-quality smartphones with a hip, internet-company buzz. Now, everybody’s doing that. There’s Meizu, OnePlus, Letv and many more – and that’s in addition to big-time players such as Huawei.

Decreased hype: Xiaomi is now a respected and established brand, not a buzz-worthy start-up. That’s not a bad thing, but it may mean Xiaomi’s days of startup-style growth are over.

Slow expansion: China’s smartphone market is pretty saturated, and Xiaomi’s global expansion pace has been glacial. The company is set up in India, but it isn’t one of the country’s top smartphone brands yet, and it doesn’t sell its smartphones in many other places yet.

Decreased focus: Xiaomi maintains that smartphones remain its core area of focus. But the company has expanded into selling everything from smart TVs to scooters, and it’s working on making a laptop and offering telecom services. 

This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.