Ever wonder why there is no chip shortage in China? I do.
Xiaomi released its new chip – Surge C1 – at its Spring Meeting on March 29, 2021, attracting massive public attention. Moreover, the latest phone, Mix Fold, conforms to the firm's increasing presence in the high-end bands, which in this case is only possible thanks to the Surge C1.
Founded on March 3, 2010, Xiaomi specializes in R&D in intelligent hardware and digital products. Differing from other manufacturers, Xiaomi aims to make quality technology accessible to everyone, so its products are in comparatively low price but relatively high quality. By now, Xiaomi has built the largest IoT platform, connecting over 100 million intelligent devices. Xiaomi's share in the global smartphone market has gradually increased from 2018 and peaked at 13% in the third quarter of 2020.
Smartphones as the main income source
After going public in Hong Kong on June 7, 2018, Xiaomi started opening its international markets and selling products overseas. Specifically, foreign income has gradually aligned with domestic income. Since 2018, the foreign income has risen by 74.86% to CNY 122.4 billion in 2020. More importantly, the smartphone sector was consistently the primary revenue stream, accounting for 64.14% on average of the whole revenue in the last three years. As a result, Xiaomi's income has shown an overall upward trend from 2017.
Xiaomi's trip on the chip
Xiaomi's chip business has been apparently underperforming, although Xiaomi got good returns from the smartphone sector. Pinecone Electronics, its first semiconductor spinoff, was founded in 2014 to help Xiaomi conduct its R&D in the space, indicating the beginning of Xiaomi's long-distance run for self-developed chips. In 2017, it released its first-generation chipset Surge S1 and established Xiaomi Yangtze River Industrial Fund. Nevertheless, with the large gap between Xiaomi's products and those of the other players, Surge S1 gradually quit the market. In the following years, the firm did not have news on self-developed chips and weakened the public's confidence. Surprisingly, in the
latest meeting in 2021, Xiaomi showed up with its new chip – the Surge C1. Unlike the Surge S1, this chip utilized an image signal processor (ISP), helping it perform more sophisticated and advanced 3A processing.///
Xiaomi rallies after removal from U.S. government blacklist
May 12, 2021 4:51 AM ET
Xiaomi Corporation (XIACF)The U.S. has agreed not to put Xiaomi(
OTC:XIACF)on a blacklist blocking investment in the Chinese tech company, undoinga move made in the last week of the Trump administration.
- Sharessoared as much as 6.5%in Hong Kong on the news.
- Earlier in March, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington, had temporarily blocked the Department of Defense from forcing American investors to divest from Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi on the grounds the company has ties to China's military.
- "Xiaomi is a publicly traded company that produces commercial products for civilian use, is controlled by its independent board and controlling shareholders, and is not effectively controlled or associated with others under the ownership or control of the PRC or its security services," the judge said at the time. "The defendants have not made the case that the national security interests at stake here are compelling."
XIACF
Xiaomi Corporation
$3.10
<I'm looking for $4.50 or so>