Xiaomi has more than doubled its Q1 net profit from last year, posting 6.1 billion yuan for the quarter. The 163% year-on-year growth was attributed to all of its business segments seeing growth.
Xiaomi’s smartphone business continued to provide the lion’s share of the company’s earnings through its 51.5 billion yuan in sales.
Global smartphone shipments during the period reached 49.4 million units and gross profit margin for the smartphone business was 12.9%. According to market research firm Canalys, this resulted in Xiaomi maintaining its position of having the third most smartphone shipments globally during the quarter, registering market share of 14.1%.
In particular, Xiaomi saw strong demand for its smartphones across Europe during the quarter, with the Chinese manufacturer providing the most smartphone shipments in Eastern Europe and being the most popular smartphone brand in Russia. In Western Europe, Xiaomi was ranked in the top three for smartphone market share in Spain, Italy, Germany, and France, while also cracking the top five in the UK for the first time.
Xiaomi also saw growth in the Chinese premium smartphone market, with its market share for smartphones in the 4,000-6,000 yuan bracket almost tripling over the past year to 16.1%.
Xiaomi’s IoT and lifestyle products division also saw strong growth, with quarterly revenue increasing by 40.5% year-on-year to 18.2 billion yuan. During the quarter, global shipments of Xiaomi’s smart TVs reached 2.6 million units and revenue from IoT and lifestyle products in overseas markets increased by 81% year-over-year.
The Chinese tech giant’s internet services segment also continued to grow, with revenue rising 11.4% year-on-year to 6.6 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2021. In conjunction with the revenue increase, Xiaomi’s user base has grown by 28.6% year-over-year to 425.3 million. Just over a quarter of this user base are from mainland China, Xiaomi said.
Combined, Xiaomi’s total Q1 revenue reached 76.9 billion yuan, which marked a 55% year-on-year increase.
Earlier in the week, Xiaomi was officially removed from the US Department of Defence’s Communist Chinese Military Company (CCMC) list, marking the formal end to the legal accusations that Xiaomi was procuring advanced technologies to support the Chinese military.
At the start of the month, Defence had already agreed to remove Xiaomi from the list as it did not wish to appeal a federal court order that blocked it from placing restrictions on the ability for domestic companies to invest in Xiaomi, but the designation removal was not made until this week.
During the tenure when Xiaomi was on the CCMC list, the company’s stock price dropped by 9.5%. It was also on the verge of being subject to a Donald Trump executive order that would have prohibited US persons from trading and investing in the company.
“In vacating the designation, the court formally lifted all restrictions on US persons’ ability to purchase or hold securities of the company,” Xiaomi said in a statement.
“The company reiterates that it is an open, transparent, publicly traded, independently operated, and managed corporation. The company will continue to provide reliable consumer electronics products and services to users, and to relentlessly build amazing products with honest prices to let everyone in the world enjoy a better life through innovative technology.”
