The Xiaomi 14 Ultra.
Xiaomi
BARCELONA— Xiaomi launched its flagship smartphone globally on Sunday as it looks to maintain its recovery momentum, while also debuting its electric vehicle for the first time in Europe.
The Chinese electronics giant launched the Xiaomi 14 for global markets at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, after debuting it this week in China.
Xiaomi found success after its founding in 2010 by selling high-quality, low-priced smartphones. But with that section of the market becoming increasingly competitive, Xiaomi has sought to push itself into the higher end of the market, where Apple and Samsung are particularly dominant, but growth has remained despite an overall difficult phone industry.
The launch comes as Xiaomi has seen a recovery in its core smartphone business, which accounts for just under two-thirds of its total revenue. Xiaomi, which is the world’s third-largest smartphone maker, saw shipments decline 4.7% year-over-year in 2023, according to IDC, a much slower decline than in 2022. In the third quarter, Xiaomi saw a small increase in revenue, after six consecutive quarters of decline.
But Xiaomi continues to face stiff competition at the high end from incumbents Apple and Samsung, as well as Chinese players such as Honor, a Huawei spin-off. Samsung in January launched its S24 series of flagship phones.
Xiaomi, however, has been trying to take its business beyond smartphones. Last year Xiaomi launched its first electric vehicle, the SU7, opening up a new product category for the Chinese giant. Xiaomi unveiled the car at MWC, introducing it to Europe for the first time.
The company also launched Smart Band 8 Pro, Xiaomi Watch S3 and Xiaomi Watch 2 – a smart fitness bracelet and two smartwatches.
Xiaomi is trying to position itself as a company that offers a series of consumer devices that can all be connected to each other via its own operating system – HyperOS – launched last year. This is a very similar strategy to what Samsung and Apple do.
Xiaomi14
The Xiaomi 14 is available in two versions: the standard Xiaomi 14 and the Xiaomi 14 Ultra.
For the more expensive Xiaomi 14 Ultra, the company talked about its “quad” camera, which uses lenses from the German company Leica.
The company touted professional photography and videography features, including a “movie mode” that allows for “an authentic cinematic look and motion blur,” according to a Xiaomi press release.