I still remember those years when Hugo Barra left Google to go to a company known as Xiaomi. So all that was a lot ... Well, let's not dramatize, not so long ago. But it does seem like an eternity ago that Xiaomi was going to reach the West. The signing of Hugo Barra seemed to be the signature to that international launch. And we are still buying Xiaomi phones through international distributors. But now, for the umpteenth time, it is said that Xiaomi will arrive in the West "soon".
Xiaomi comes to the West
Hugo Barra says it, and he says it in an interview with Bloomberg, although he still does not talk about dates or the year of launch. He's not talking about the end of 2016. He's not talking about 2017. Although it seems that thinking of 2018 as what it would be "soon" doesn't make much sense, does it? So we will be left thinking that if it is not this year, it will be the next when Xiaomi phones will finally officially arrive in the West. Then it will be necessary to debate what the West is. Do they refer only to the United States or also to Europe? The American market is more relevant both for the number of users and for the fact that the United States is a single country and does not pose the problems that Europe poses with regard to the different markets.
Be that as it may, more details about how smartphones will be sold are already beginning to be specified, through online distributors, and also through social media marketing. What translated in Spain means that the ones that will sell the most mobiles is Amazon, and then there will be some other online stores that will also sell Xiaomi, although they will hardly compete with Amazon, with the exception of very specialized stores.
At the marketing level, they really don't need to do much more. The brand is more than known in Europe, and the media will give all the relevance they need to its landing in the West. Still, yes, it remains to be seen if Xiaomi manages to reach the West with the same prices that it has in Asia. If so, it will be a star in the smartphone market here too. Much of the success of the company depends on it.