Corporate China | Huawei shows frustration, Xiaomi elation
Two of China's most successful tech companies, Xiaomi and Huawei, took center stage in the microblogging realm over the past week, engaging in a rare direct war of words over their competing products in the nation's overheated smartphone market. Their online sparring aside, the pair of tech stars also engaged in their own separate globally-focused activities that emphasized attempts by each to become the nation's first truly international smartphone brand.
Huawei's media-shy founder Ren Zhengfei traveled to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he gave a rare public speech in which he appealed to the US to accept his company's products, in remarks chronicled by some of his top deputies on their microblogs. Meantime, several recently recruited member of Xiaomi's high-profile international team met at the company's headquarters in Beijing, where they were talking strategy as the company continues its global expansion.
Xiaomi is somewhat like its role model Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), in that anything it says automatically gets much more media attention and creates far bigger consumer buzz than comparable announcements from its rivals. That kind of ability is the envy of many of its competitors, including Huawei, whose own products may be just as good as or even better than Xiaomi's but get far less attention.
Huawei senior vice president Yu Chengdong was clearly feeling some of that frustration over the past week when he made a microblog post that was critical of Xiaomi's latest products released earlier this month, including a large-screen smartphone the Mi Note. Huawei released its own new large-screen model, the Ascend Mate 7 around the same time, though it has received far less attention despite getting relatively positive reviews.
