“The biggest challenge for us is if we can push innovation and low prices on a yearly basis,” he said. “Technology innovation of course is the most important element for success.”
One thing that allows the company to push for innovations is by listening to customer feedback on its online forums which has 30 million registered users. Based on these comments, Xiaomi updates its OS every week on Friday at 5pm.
“We embrace the power of the internet to let millions of customers be our product engineers,’ Bin said.
In November, Xiaomi hit milestone number by selling 1.16 million smartphones in a record 24-hour sale on Tmall.com during the online shopping festival known as Singles Day. On the same day, it sold another 200,000 handset on its newly opened direct selling website in less than 10 hours.
“By the end of this year, we could be the number three e-commerce player in China,” Bin said.
This year Xiaomi has embarked on a global expansion with considerable success in India and Indonesia. But it has since scaled back on planned forays into other markets.
“We have to see if our business model would work outside of China,” Bin said, adding that it is not just about selling handsets but whether we can replicate the same market condition where mobile users are actively using a range of internet services, playing games, etc.
He also said it is not about profits but market share. So it is likely that Xiaomi’s next move would be into large markets like Russia and Brazil.
Meanwhile, Bin stopped any speculation of a possible IPO. “We are very young and want to stay a startup as long as we can. We have a lot to do and there are so many areas we can look at.”