Xiaomi: litmus test for Biden

By
Frank Sieren

For a very long time, Xiaomi was one of the big winners of the US embargo on Chinese companies. In the third quarter of 2020, Xiaomi made more than half of its revenue (55 percent) outside of China for the first time in its ten-year history. Partly because many Huawei users switched to a Xiaomi phone in recent months. The most important reason: Huawei, just on its way to becoming the world leader in smartphone sales, was hit hard by the US sanctions. In Europe – Huawei’s biggest overseas market – shipments fell 25 percent in the third quarter of 2020. Meanwhile, they rose 88 percent at Xiaomi. People at Xiaomi were rejoicing in early November when it became apparent that Trump would lose the election. But executives didn’t expect Trump to lash out in freefall. On Jan. 14 this year, he had them blacklisted along with a number of other companies. On the list, the US Department of Defense designates nine Chinese companies as “Communist Chinese military contractors.”