Xiaomi founder Lei Jun says he is inspired by Apple’s Steve Jobs and ready to take on Elon Musk’s Tesla in the EV market

It remains to be seen whether Lei can repeat the success he has had in the smartphone market.

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What's behind Xiaomi's meteoric rise?

The billionaire founder launched Xiaomi in 2010 to a highly crowded market filled with established brands. Today, Xiaomi is the world’s third-largest smartphone vendor by shipments, according to research firm IDC.

Lei said that as of early November, the Beijing company had sold more than a million units of the Xiaomi 14, its latest flagship phone released on October 26. For comparison, Apple shipped roughly 3 million iPhone 15 series devices in China within the month of launch, according to research firm Canalys.

Xiaomi has been trying to drum up excitement about its coming car models, the SU7 and SU7 Max. The 54-year-old entrepreneur grabbed local headlines last month after he donated 1.3 billion yuan to his alma mater Wuhan University.

Lei started a business venture in 1991 to develop a workplace software toolkit akin to Microsoft Office, before he dove into the smartphone industry. In 2021, Lei called Xiaomi’s push into the electric car market “the last entrepreneurship of my life”.

China’s electric vehicle market is growing strongly. Total output of electric vehicles in the first 11 months increased 27.7 per cent from a year ago to 8.05 million vehicles, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, making China one of the world’s top electric vehicle producers.

In November alone, China’s new energy vehicle output rose by more than a third from a year ago to reach 1.01 million units, surpassing the one-million milestone, official data showed.

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Чехия Происшествия и Катастрофы

Xiaomi Элона Маска Лей Юн Tesla Steve Jobs Apple рынок электроэнергия основатель xiaomi Lei