Xiaomi is a Chinese company who has been making waves and has risen in the ranks of smartphone manufacturers despite the fact that their presence in western markets is almost nonexistent. Last year the company also made waves when they released the Mi Pad which looked like a cross between the iPad and the iPhone 5c.Now in what seems like a rather ironic moment in Xiaomi’s history, the company is complaining about fake products and counterfeiters who are knocking off the company’s design and products. This is according to a report from Bloomberg who claims that the company’s Mi Power Bank was expected to have sold at least 30 million units in 2014, but only managed 14.6 million which is said to be less than half of what they had originally estimated.
According to Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun, “What is the biggest problem? There are many fakes. If there were no counterfeits, our sales would be double or triple. The product has been recognized by everyone.” Like we said this is a tad ironic considering that Xiaomi not only copied the design of the iPad/iPhone 5c for their Mi Pad, but on the OS front the company had also borrowed some design elements from iOS.
In fact Jony Ive had some pretty harsh words for Xiaomi back in 2014 in an interview with Vanity Fair. According to Ive, ”When you’re doing something for the first time, you don’t know it’s going to work. You spend seven or eight years working on something, and then it’s copied. I have to be honest, the first thing I can think, all those weekends that I could have at home with my family but didn’t. I think it’s theft, and it’s lazy.”