Quanxin Wang, GM of Xiaomi Western Europe, told Mobile World Live it set sights on growth in the UK and Germany following success in establishing its brand in Spain, and emphasised the importance of evolving its offering beyond smartphones to keep pace with consumer demands.
In an interview, Wang said Xiaomi performed well in recent years in price conscious markets including Spain, where he claims it now operates as the leading smartphone vendor after benefitting from rival Huawei’s decline.
To establish a deeper presence in Europe, Wang (pictured, left) said the company is now targeting the UK and Germany, however it faces an ongoing challenge of building relationships with consumers in the former.
“The UK is a complex market for many tech brands.”
“Much like the US, consumers remain dedicated [to] the brands and will pay more for a premium experience. We are still on a journey in the UK market when it comes to introducing them to our products and our values.”
HyperOS
To push consumers to its ecosystem, Xiaomi is banking heavily on HyperOS, a platform debuted on its 14 Series line.
The OS has been in the works since 2017 and is designed to unite all of Xiaomi’s devices and applications.
Wang explained consumers now want more out of their devices as the pool of products and services they wish to control grows.
HyperOS integrates more than 200 product categories, connects 820 million devices and “covers more than 95 per cent of user scenarios”, the executive claimed.
Citing a forecast from data company Statista the global smart home segment will be worth around $262.6 billion in 2025, Wang said he believes consumers are now looking to their smartphones to become remote command centres.
Smartphone companies must evolve alongside this behaviour to cater to consumer demand to sustain growth, he added.
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