Why is Xiaomi more popular than Apple?

It's no secret that a feature-packed smartphone costs only about $100 to $150 to manufacture. This applies to all manufacturers irrespective of their country of origin. It could be even less when manufactured in China given synergies in suppliers, vendors, and VFM manufacturing units. 

Add the TVC, full page all edition launch ad, product photo shoot, internet retargeting, social media campaigns, teasers, paying the influencers, huge product billboards, fortune 500 magazine ad inserts, youtube preroll ads and VIOLA your $100 smartphone becomes a $300 smartphone instantly. It is here that Xiaomi is truly different from other high and medium-end smartphone manufacturers. They have reduced their marketing and advertising efforts to such an extent that such costs do not get factored into the price what consumers have to pay. What else, well Xiaomi also started distributing the phones directly through their websites reducing the costs further. Xiaomi also made sure that costs savings in marketing efforts were invested in design, software and quality aspects of the phone. Result? - Redmi phones have material quality, lightning fast UI, 2-day lasting battery all of which are one step better than your highly priced Samsungs and even iPhones. 

When people saw feature-packed, good-looking, high-performance smartphones at a fraction of the cost of an iPhone, they started buying it. Then the influencers in the tech domain started picking up after the phones and started spreading the good reviews. 

This is how Xiaomi became popular. They had no fancy launches in SFO to give them PR. Its the product that spoke for Xiaomi. In fact, the Redmi Phones are so popular that they are sold off within seconds in Flipkart Flash Sales and Pre-orders campaigns. 

Spurred on by the success of its smartphones, Xiaomi has launched its range of Smart TV's recently which is doing extremely well given the features and a lip-smacking price of Rs. 39k for 55" 4K. 

Xiaomi has also found great ways of connecting with their fans. The recently concluded Mi Fan Festival saw Xiaomi dropping prices of their popular products by the same amount of likes they received in social media handles. They also kicked-off a crowdfunding campaign for two of their upcoming devices which were over-subscribed within a few days. 

To be honest, I am a huge Apple fan. I like Apple for their disruptions. But it seems as if somewhere down the line, Apple has forgotten about their biggest asset, its huge fanbase. The new products lack flare when compared to those from the Jobs era. Innovations look forced and incremental rather than coming from understanding the consumer's needs and desires. Apple better pull up their sleeves and get cracking because a new Xapple is on the rise.