WSJ: Xiaomi is “rattling” China’s smartphone race

Earlier this month, Bits & Pieces reported that Xiaomi had selected Atmel’s maXTouch mXT540S controller to power the 5-inch touchscreen of its recently launched full high-definition (HD) Mi3 smartphone. This week, the Wall Street Journal confirmed (via Canalys) that Xiaomi successfully captured 5% of China’s smartphone market as of the second quarter of 2013.

Unsurprisingly, the company remains on track to sell 20 million handsets this year.

“We use an Internet thought process. On the Internet the best products—the products used most frequently—are all free. Email is free, most content is free,” Xiamoi CEO Lei Jun told the Wall Street Journal. “If you give us a suggestion, and we quickly change it, you will have a long-lasting sense of achievement. Once you’re sure we’ve fixed it, you have a strong sense of ownership, and then you will tell classmates, friends, roommates, everyone that Xiaomi is good.”

According to Mr. Lei, the company makes money by offering services such as mobile applications and movies via its software, which is based on Google’s popular Android mobile operating system.

“Xiaomi, which uses its website as its primary sales platform, also offers an array of accessories from multicolored batteries and casings, to hats and even dolls of the company’s rabbit mascot,” explained Paul Mozur of the WSJ. “For the two-year period ending in 2013, it projects it will have sold 680,000 of the dolls, which range in price from 19 yuan to 149 yuan (about $3 -$24).”

As noted above, Xiaomi recently selected Atmel’s maXTouch mXT540S controller to power the Mi3’s HD 5-inch touchscreen. More specifically, with Atmel’s mXT540S, Xiaomi’s Mi3 smartphone is capable of delivering superior touch performance with a very sensitive touch panel – offering the fastest report rate in the industry.

This is a particularly crucial feature for the capture of precise touches, including handwriting and signatures, with a fingernail. And with an industry-leading signal-to-noise ratio, the mXT540S offers noise suppression for environments with aftermarket noisy chargers, along with longer battery life.

Additional key Mi3 smartphone features include:

• Nvidia Tegra 4 processor or Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (depending on market)
• 5-inch IPS 1080p display
• 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM
• 13MP Sony Exmor RS CMOS camera
• 2MP front facing
• 3,050mAh battery
• NFC
• 8.1mm thick profile

Interested in learning more about our maXTouch technology? You can check out Atmel’s maXTouch portfolio here.