5 juiciest quotes from Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun’s interview with WSJ

When we interviewed Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun in 2012, the company was in its earliest days. The Xiaomi M1 had just come out, and Lei and Co. were getting ready for the Mi2. Lei shrugged at the idea of producing a Xiaomi tablet and said the company had not yet thought about expanding to markets outside of China. A lot can change in three years.

Xiaomi is now one of China’s biggest smartphone producers, and it is vying to export its platform/hardware hybrid model to other countries throughout the world. In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Lei reflected on the company’s runaway success – and included some seriously juicy quotes in the process.

#1 in India by 2018

“We need to prove that our business model can be copied overseas successfully, at least in one market. We’ll need to try our best to be successful in a few emerging markets in a big way. We give ourselves three years to be the top three or even No.1 smartphone brand in India.

[…] The core of an online operation is population size. Therefore we want to sell to 10 to 20 percent of the population in India and other big countries. Then we’ll have the influence of a huge media organization and the opportunity to monetize in various ways.”

See: Xiaomi shifts into top gear in India with new online and offline sales channels

No IPO – yet

“As for IPO, we won’t consider it within the next five years. The reason is simple. I hold controlling stakes in five public companies and understand the pros and cons of going public. I believe five years from now will be better timing for Xiaomi to consider an IPO.”

33% growth is enough

Make profit from the platform, not the hardware

Patents on patents on patents