Xiaomi Will Release Its Flagship Smartphone to Take on iPhone 17

Xiaomi will release its next flagship smartphone this month and update the brand. This move is aimed at competing with Apple and seizing a share of the high-end smartphone market.

The Beijing-based company is shortening its regular release schedule and directly jumping from the Xiaomi 15 generation to the new 17 series. Its naming convention is similar to that of Apple's iPhone, and new Xiaomi 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max models are about to be launched. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Lei Jun said on Monday that his company wants to be measured against Apple’s smartphones, long considered the standard bearers at the high end of the market.

Apple’s iPhone 17 goes on sale globally this Friday. The new Pro version features a completely new design. According to data from Contrellip Research, Apple accounts for 62% of the sales in the high-end market (handsets priced at $600 and above). Meanwhile, Xiaomi has only a sliver of that segment globally, though it grew such sales by 55% in the first half of this year and stands a better chance to compete domestically in China, where Apple’s iPhone Air has been delayed.

“We started our premiumization strategy five years ago to learn from our greatest competitor, benchmarking ourselves against the iPhone,” Xiaomi President Lu Weibing said in a post on Weibo. “Apple is still outstanding. But we are highly confident we can face the challenge with the same generation of product.”

Long known for its value-for-money proposition spanning everything from smartphones and laptops to kitchen appliances and luggage, Xiaomi made a bold foray into electric vehicles that’s begun to pay off over the past year, almost tripling its Hong Kong-traded shares. After Apple gave up in the emerging field, Xiaomi seems to be even more boldly challenging the leading players in the US smartphone market.

“Jumping to the 17 series sounds like Xiaomi is confident enough to say that it can be as good as Apple, which is still held in high regard in China,” said IDC analyst Bryan Ma. “For Xiaomi, 10% of its China smartphone shipments were above $600 in the first half of this year, which is up from nearly nothing in 2019.”