If you happened upon mi.com on Valentine’s Day, you would have been greeted by a pastel-rich page of illustrations, accompanied by a message: “Happy Heart’s Day”. The day of the singular heart? Despite a commendable lack of garish red, this Valentine’s greeting still smacks of Google Translate, a vibe that’s repeated across much of Xiaomi’s portfolio.You don’t need insider information to realise Xiaomi hasn’t quite perfected its English-language messaging just yet. But, then again, who really cares about perfection when messages like ‘Happy Heart’s Day’ are accompanied by words like ‘50 per cent off’?

With Honor and Huawei contracting outside (and even inside) China since Huawei was placed on the US entity list, Xiaomi’s seized the opportunity, and its growth has been steady. Last year, Xiaomi took the number 19 spot in the most valuable technology brands worldwide list, placing one spot behind Dell. It also placed 81 on the most valuable global brands list, ahead of KFC.Out-clucking the Colonel is all well and good, but Xiaomi’s shifting some serious product, having had greater year-on-year growth than any other top-five global smartphone maker between Q4 2019 and 2020. Diving into specific territories, it climbed to the number one spot in Spain in May 2020, overtaking the established leader, Samsung, and hit number two in Russia, with 23 per cent of the market in Q3 2020.

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