Xiaomi burst onto the scene as a budget-friendly smartphone maker, but over the last decade it has quietly reshaped itself into an all-round technology powerhouse. What began as a high-value, low-cost phone brand has, as of 2024, swollen into an ecosystem spanning smartphones, smart home gadgets, electric vehicles, custom chips and cutting-edge AI — all fueled by aggressive R&D and a laser focus on vertical integration.
A Solid Foundation in Smartphones and IoT
At its core, Xiaomi remains a leading smartphone vendor. In Q4 2024, it held the world’s third-largest market share — trailing Apple (23 percent) and Samsung (16 percent) but still growing, with shipments up 5 percent year-on-year. Yet rather than rest on its laurels, Xiaomi has leveraged its handset success to build an “AIoT” platform: a network of smart TVs, routers, air purifiers, scooters and home appliances that all communicate seamlessly via its Mi Home app. In 2024 alone it sold 6.8 million IoT devices — triple the volume of just two years earlier — turning each phone purchase into an opportunity to lock in customers to a broader ecosystem.
Strong Financial Performance Across Multiple Fronts
Xiaomi’s financials underscore this diversification. Full-year revenue for 2024 reached RMB 365.9 billion (about US $50.7 billion), up 35 percent from 2023, while adjusted net profit soared 41 percent to RMB 27.2 billion (US $3.8 billion). Notably, the traditional smartphone and IoT division generated RMB 333.2 billion (US $46.2 billion), a 22.9 percent increase year-on-year. But the most eye-catching growth came from its newer ventures: electric vehicles and other emerging businesses together contributed RMB 32.8 billion (US $4.6 billion) in 2024, despite EV deliveries only kicking off late in the year. In Q4, total revenues surpassed RMB 100 billion (US $13.9 billion) for the first time, marking a 48.8 percent jump.
Electrifying the Road with Rapid-Fire EV Rollout
In 2021 Xiaomi pledged US $10 billion over ten years to build its own electric-vehicle arm, and the payoff has been swift. Its first model, the SU7 sedan, launched in early 2024 and hit 100,000 deliveries by November — just 230 days after production began. For context, Tesla’s Model 3 needed over a year to reach similar volumes. By March 2025, Xiaomi had delivered 136,854 SU7s and carried a backlog exceeding 150,000 orders. To meet surging demand, it broke ground on the “F2” Beijing factory in August 2024, scheduled for completion in July 2025, and has already raised US $5.5 billion in fresh equity to accelerate EV output. Early data show Xiaomi’s EV gross margins hovering around 20 percent — competitive with established players.
Conquering Chips: From Outsider to Contender
No tech titan is complete without its own silicon, and Xiaomi is racing to catch up. In May 2025 it unveiled a 10-year, CNY 50 billion (US $6.9 billion) plan to develop in-house smartphone processors, alongside a broader pledge of CNY 200 billion (US $28 billion) in R&D by 2030. The first fruit of that push, the XRing O1 3 nm SoC built on TSMC’s leading node, packs 19 billion transistors and benchmarks on par with — and in multi-core tests even above — Apple’s A18 Pro. By developing its own chips, Xiaomi secures better control over performance, costs and supply-chain risks, especially crucial amid U.S. export controls on advanced semiconductors.
AIoT and AI: Cementing Ecosystem Stickiness
Behind every hardware push lies Xiaomi’s AIoT vision: hundreds of millions of connected devices under one platform, all enriched by software and cloud services. Its internet services arm generated RMB 33.4 billion (US $4.6 billion) in revenue in Q4 2024 at an eye-watering 76.5 percent gross margin — reminiscent of Apple’s App Store profitability. In AI, Xiaomi unveiled “MiMo,” a seven-billion-parameter large-language model in April 2025 that outperforms peer chatbots on coding and math tests. The goal is to weave intelligence into voice assistants, cameras and user interfaces across phones, cars and home gadgets.
A Unified Vision: Human, Vehicle, Home
Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun often speaks of a “human-vehicle-home” trifecta: envisioning a world where a smartphone, an SU7 EV and a smart speaker coordinate effortlessly under an AI assistant’s guidance. This strategic interplay of hardware, software and services isn’t just ambition — it’s the blueprint that has driven Xiaomi from bargain-brand beginnings to a contender on the world’s tech stage. If the next decade unfolds as it has the last few years, Xiaomi may no longer be China’s Apple — but a genuine, diversified technology champion in its own right.