Which company do China’s techies like better: Huawei or Xiaomi?

Recently, Huawei and Xiaomi have been sharing the headlines. That’s because Xiaomi’s slowdown in smartphone sales has been Huawei’s gain, with the latter looking to exceed sales targets while the former struggles to meet them this year.

But does this switch-up reflect a change in Chinese consumer perceptions about these companies?

One online poll certainly suggests so. A Sina Tech online poll that asks readers which company they prefer in the smartphone sales battle has come to an overwhelming and perhaps somewhat surprising conclusion: people prefer Huawei.

Now, of course, this is just an unscientific internet poll. Given that it’s posted on Sina Tech, respondents probably skew young, male, and many of them are likely in the tech industry. Of course, we can’t rule out the possibility of some sort of vote tampering either. But even if the numbers aren’t ironclad proof of anything, they certainly suggest a wind change in the mood of China’s techies when it comes to Xiaomi and Huawei. Here’s how the 12,000-plus people who’ve responded to the poll so far answered:

So yeah, that’s pretty grim. Xiaomi is polling only slightly ahead of don’t care.

More concerning for Xiaomi might be the comments on the poll, though. As of this writing, the two most popular comments (one with nearly 1,300 upvotes and the other with around 750) both use the term “swindler” to describe Xiaomi and its CEO Lei Jun. The overall sentiment seems to be that commenters are sick of Xiaomi’s marketing gimmicks (like the flash sales), and view Huawei as having a brighter-looking future thanks to all of its patents and its global availability.

What do you think? Who do you support here, Xiaomi or Huawei?