When it comes to affordable and value-oriented smartphones, Xiaomi has emerged as the market leader in several key regions like India and other parts of Asia. The company has consistently been at the top of the sales charts in India, beating the likes of erstwhile market leaders like Samsung and absolutely dominating the scene, making it very difficult for anyone else to grab any share of the market pie. The good run extends onto regions like Europe, where Xiaomi has managed to achieve strong annual growth.
Xiaomi's recent results show that the company is focusing on cutting down its dependance on the Chinese market and growing it further in international markets, as it ended up receiving only 60% of its total revenue from China this time as compared to 72% last year. Its combined net profits for Q4 2018 tripled to CNY 1.85 Billion ($275 Million) YoY, exceeding average estimates. For the full calendar year of 2018, Xiaomi brought in revenue of CNY 175 Billion ($26 Billion) and made a net profit of CNY 8.6 Billion ($1.2 Billion), which is pretty impressive on its own.
Xiaomi's philosophy is to do more business with smaller profit margins, which allows it to achieve high revenue figures, dominate sales charts and provide extremely high product value to consumers. As a result, Xiaomi ranked no. 1 for six consecutive quarters in India in 2018, ranked no. 2 in Indonesia with an increase of about 300% YoY, and ranked no. 4 for Western Europe with an increase of about 415% YoY. This value-oriented approach has been appreciated in markets outside of China, and Xiaomi is keen on replicating the same success everywhere else.
We will continue to explore the global markets and replicate the success in India in other key markets such as Indonesia and Western Europe. We will also expand into more new international markets in 2019.
Xiaomi's overall smartphone average selling price for 2018 was $143, but this is likely to change in the future as the company's co-founder revealed the company's intent on raising the price of its flagship devices. Keeping in touch with its philosophy of providing a value product and slim profit margins, this would mean greater investment into new technologies, which should further help the company maintain an edge over its competitors. Bringing over newer smartphones like the Xiaomi Mi 9 and more expensive and advanced future flagships might just click with flagship-oriented markets such as the USA, if they do decide to bring their smartphones over there officially.