China’s Biggest Phone Manufacturer is Chinese — Now it Faces the Same Foe as its Competitors

You’ve probably never heard of Xiaomi but they’re a pretty big deal in the market most tech companies are eyeing pretty hard. Nope, this market isn’t the US. Its China.

The reason why Xiaomi draws a big blank for most people outside of China is because the company does pretty well selling strictly within its boarders in the Middle Kingdom. The company’s been in business for five years, but is still considered to be a startup. But unlike most startups scraping for funding and working out of a co-working space, this one’s worth $45 billion. In fact, it’s more like the companies it overtook, Apple and Samsung, to be the market leader in China.

But like the two tech juggernauts, the company now faces the same problem that plagues their business — counterfeiters.

Sales of its Mi Power Bank, an external battery to charge cell phones, were off more than half of what the company expected. Xiaomi’s CEO, Lei Jun, fingered the proliferation of fakes. If it weren’t for fakes, Jun believes sales of the device would be double or triple the sales of what was reported.

Via Bloomberg. Photo by Roland Tanglao (roland)/flickr.