Lei Jun, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Xiaomi Inc (Photo : www.scmp.com/ AFP)
Leading Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi continues with its expansion into lucrative Western markets, as it opened its online accessory store in the U.S. and major European countries, the Global Times reported.
In a statement released by the company, it said that its U.S. store went online on June 1, Monday, and also launched mi.com in France, Britain and Germany on Tuesday.
Hugo Barra, vice president of Xiaomi Global, said that he was "truly excited to bring a selection of our best-selling accessories" to Western consumers.
A spokesperson for the company told the Agence France Presse on June 2, Tuesday, that the site is limited to offering accessories only.
The website offers products that include a $14.99 fitness band, which is much cheaper compared with $99.99 for the mid-range tracker from San Francisco-based Jawbone, and $79.99 headphones and battery cells as cheap as $9.99.
The company said that although they intend to offer more products to U.S. and European consumers, their shipments are currently limited to the four countries.
Xiaomi enjoyed a huge success in its home market and gained 13.7 percent of market share in the first quarter of 2015, behind its rival Apple.
It sold more than 61 million smartphones in 2014 to become the top smartphone company in China, and increase of sales to 227 percent from 2013.
The company has launched products in Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as in the Southeast Asian markets, but has yet to expand into developed countries and regions.
Founded in 2010 by entrepreneur Lei Jun, Xiaomi surpassed other companies in China's highly competitive smartphone market by delivering high-performance products at affordable prices.
In five years, the Chinese firm grew to become the world's no.3 smartphone vendor, next only to Apple and South Korea's Samsung, and grew rapidly in emerging countries and regions.
