Can Xiaomi take a bite out of Apple?

Although its smartphones won't be available here anytime soon, Xiaomi unveiled plans to test the U.S. market by selling inexpensive headphones and other accessories online.

It hopes its Internet-driven, customer-friendly model that has helped turn the company into a major player in mobile computing just five years after its founding will work in the US.

Xiaomi — pronounced schow-mee — has made a name in China by selling sleek gadgets at relatively low prices, using online sales and social media to keep marketing and distribution costs low. 

Some analysts have hailed the company as the Chinese equivalent of Apple, in part because of its intensely loyal fans.

There are some significant differences between the two companies' approach, though. 

While Apple tends to keep its future product plans secret, Xiaomi has invited customers to nosh on popcorn at company parties, chat on Xiaomi's online forums and review or make suggestions for new features, which Xiaomi frequently builds into its weekly software updates.

'We don't have customers or users. They prefer to be addressed (as) fans,' said Hugo Barra, who defected from his job overseeing Google's Android products in 2013 to help plot Xiaomi's expansion outside China.

Xiaomi has emerged as a mobile-computing sensation with a line of smartphones sold in China, India and seven other countries where much of the population still lacks Internet access. 

The phones offer a smattering of the sleek technology featured in fancier devices made by Apple and Samsung, but they sell at much lower prices, ranging from about $95 to $280. 

In comparison, an iPhone 6 starts at $650 without subsidies for signing two-year contracts.

A Xiaomi phone 'may not be the best product out there but a product with the best combination: a very affordable price and good quality,' said Bing-Sheng Teng, a corporate strategy expert at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing.

(dailymail.co.uk)