HK Movers | Xiaomi Stock Drops 5% After Debuting a $630 Answer to iPhone 17

XIAOMI-W stocks fell 5% in Hong Kong trading.

Xiaomi Corp.’s billionaire co-founder unveiled a $630 smartphone designed to take on the just-released iPhone 17, underscoring the Chinese company’s broader ambitions to take on US rivals from Apple Inc. to Tesla Inc.

The Xiaomi 17, which will be offered in Pro and Pro Max models just like Apple’s marquee series, starts at 4,499 yuan ($631.20) for the most basic model, rising to 5,999 yuan at the top end, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Lei Jun said via a livestreamed event on Thursday. That’s more than $100 cheaper than the base iPhone 17, introduced just weeks before during Apple’s annual product launch event.

Lei is going after longtime foe Apple in the most direct fashion, shifting Xiaomi’s branding and timing to measure his products against the US company’s best. In a two-hour online presentation, the CEO orchestrated a side-by-side comparison with the iPhone on battery life, display quality and camera capabilities.

On Thursday, Lei also pitted his cars against Tesla’s, singling out the Model Y. Xiaomi is riding high after a successful initial expansion into electric vehicles helped triple its market value over the past year. He again sketched out his company’s years-long research effort into unlikely arenas from cars to chips. The 55-year-old entrepreneur has previously outlined plans to create AI models and spend $7 billion developing its own mobile processors, part of a broader effort to drive Xiaomi beyond the consumer gadgets it’s known for.

Lei, who has called EVs his last big entrepreneurial venture, is trying to transform and elevate a company that started out by undercutting the iPhone. “We’ve undergone a profound transformation over the past five years and today a completely new Xiaomi stands firmly in front of a new era, ”Lei said of Xiaomi’s evolving business portfolio.

Beijing-based Xiaomi is aggressively pushing for a bigger slice of the premium segment. But confronting Apple means taking on a US company that controls 62% of premium smartphone sales globally, comprising handsets costing $600 or more. Xiaomi has only a single-digit share, according to Counterpoint Research.

Now worth close to $200 billion as investors bet on its expansion into EVs, Xiaomi has carved out a space for itself in a market dominated by Shenzhen-based BYD Co. and Elon Musk’s Tesla. By the June launch of its second car, the YU7 SUV, Xiaomi’s first model was outselling the Tesla Model 3. That was slightly more than a year after the first deliveries started in the spring of 2024.