You have probably already searched for a hair dryer or a fine pen on AliExpress and seen countless products with the unmistakable Mi logo in the corner of the picture:
And you thought: «How good! Toilet paper with Xiaomi quality guarantee! ».
Or if you are a slightly more advanced user, you may have read on TopesDeGama that Xiaomi released a smart trash can with voice recognition. Then you start researching the product file on AliExpress and are surprised to find that Xiaomi is not mentioned anywhere.
Which Products are Xiaomi and which are not
Before we explain what the causes of this phenomenon are, we will define different categories of products that are broadly classified as Xiaomi:
1. 100% Xiaomi products
We could almost only include smartphones and laptops in this category, as they are apparently the only products designed and manufactured by Xiaomi itself (obviously buying components from suppliers).
2. 100% Xiaomi products… but marketed under a different brand
One of Xiaomi’s strategies to capture more of the market is to bring sub-brands to the market, and in home-made smartphones we have the popular Redmi and Pocophone lines. It’s a strategy traced back to that of Huawei with Honor.
3. Xiaomi / Mijia items made by third party suppliers
Here we come straight to the heart of the matter. Much of Xiaomi’s success is the result of creating an international brand under which high quality Chinese products can be marketed that would otherwise have struggled to penetrate the western market.
In fact, Xiaomi’s “Modus Operandi” is as simple as it is powerful:
- They are gaining consumer confidence by selling great phones at a practical cost.
- You are looking for Chinese startups and manufacturers with high quality products.
- They enter into an agreement with them to rebrand (sell these products under the Mi brand) or create similar exclusive products for Mi, sometimes buying part of their stake.
- They use their reputation to market them inside and outside of China.
To name a few examples: the Xiaomi scooters are actually from Ninebot, the headphones are actually from 1More, the jackets are actually 90FUN, the glasses are Turok Steinhardt.
So far everything is perfect, there is nothing to complain about Xiaomi as it has never hidden this.
4. Affiliated brands sold through Xiaomi
Here we find products sold through Xiaomi physical or online stores without changing the brand: the Roborock is now marketed directly under this name, just like Huami’s Amazfit, Roidmi products.
All of these are not necessarily Xiaomi, but are very closely related to the brand and are actively marketed by it. That is of course completely legitimate, so this one they are considered to be the Xiaomi ecosystem in our opinion.
5. Products with Mi Home (aka Mijia) integration
Mi Home is the home automation app / platform from which Xiaomi products and other brands can be integrated. Philips, for example, has lightbulbs with Mijia integration: the manufacturer is Philips, but in our opinion these also exist You are the Xiaomi ecosystem.
6. Products sold on Youpin
As mentioned in this article, Youpin is a Xiaomi online shop that sells third-party products. In it you will find the Mi Band and the Cinco Jotas ham:
Does this mean that the Cinco Jotas ham comes from the Xiaomi ecosystem? Of course not.
And that’s the big delusion: that of sellers who take advantage of users’ trust to sneak in like Xiaomi products that aren’t at all, like the AliExpress sellers in the first picture. They are not of the Xiaomi brand, nor were they produced under the supervision of Xiaomi, nor do they have an integration with Mijia.
The business of everything is Xiaomi
The trick used by AliExpress sellers is that they promote every product that has been for sale on Youpin as a Xiaomi. Or every product by a brand that has ever sold something on Youpin, something that is still far-fetched.
The reason is obvious, but we’ll do an experiment. Try to measure your propensity to buy this product:
And now compare it to this tab:
It’s exactly the same product, but the seller takes advantage of the Mi brand’s appeal. In order not to have to return later, the seller usually apologizes in the description with the typical “There is no Xiaomi logo, but it’s Xiaomi, don’t worry“:
But be careful, does that mean the product is of poor quality? Not at all. It just has nothing to do with Xiaomi.
A Misconception fueled by Tech Blogs
But AliExpress sellers aren’t the only ones taking advantage of the pull: major technology blogs have swelled in recent years to annoy visitors with misleading headlines like “Xiaomi launches a product”. That leaves people with the image that Xiaomi is not much less than Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, where they invent something new every day. And the truth is, the news is simply that this product is for sale on Youpin.
At AliexBA we are sometimes forced to name some products by the Xiaomi name in order for users to understand which product we mean, although later in the main part of the file we make it clear that this has nothing to do with Xiaomi. A good example of this is the NeSugar Happy Life 3 in 1, a NeSugar brand fan that someone invented was Xiaomi and has since stuck to the name “Xiaomi Happy Life” or “Xiaomi Happy Life 3 in 1” forever.
And if this is what you are interested in, I recommend the article on Youpin and the tips on buying Xiaomi on AliExpress.
