For Xiaomi, Apple is an inspiration

The Chinese brand Xiaomi has never really hidden it: Apple is a big influence for it. This is also seen both in the design of its products and sometimes in the way they are named. In 2019 for example,the company released the Mi Watch, a connected watch strongly reminiscent of the Apple Watch visually. The same year, she unveiled theOutside of me, its own (not so far removed) version of Memoji, Apple's 3D animated emoticons.

Last year, the Mi Pad Pro 5 tablet was released with a design so close to the iPad Pro that we could no longer only speak of inspiration, but lean towards theplagiarism pure and simple.

It was therefore no surprise when the CEO of Xiaomi, Lei Jun, recently announced on the social network Weibo that he still had Apple in his sights. More precisely, for Lei Jun, it is a question of seeking to reach the level of its American competitor in terms of both hardware and software. In short, Xiaomi wants to offer smartphones as well designed as the iPhone and a user experience as qualitative as what iOS underpins.

“[We aim to] fully benchmark against Apple in [terms of] product and experience, and become China’s biggest high-end brand in the next three years,” Lei said in a post seen by the publication. In the same post, he described the high-end smartphone market as “a war of life and death.”

To achieve this, Xiaomi wants to put in the resources and plans an investment of nearly14 billion eurosin research and development over the next 5 years.

These ambitions are obviously not to be taken lightly by the Chinese's competitors. This has already, in 2021, managed to climb ahead of Samsung and Apple in Europe, in the ranking of smartphone sellers. But it has not yet really attacked the high-end segment currently occupied by the two Korean and American manufacturers. By 2027, it could well dislodge the duo.

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Editor-in-chief for iPhon.fr. Pierre is like Indiana Jones, looking for the lost iOS trick. Also a long-time Mac user, Apple devices hold no secrets for him. Contact: pierre[a]iphon.fr.