In China, there are a few top-tier companies which have been making the top 5 consistently and these include Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo, vivo and perhaps OnePlus. However, globally, we will definitely add Samsung and Apple to the list. Compared to Huawei, Apple and Samsung, Xiaomi is a pretty young company and it has done a lot for its self by toppling these manufacturing giants to the No 1 spot in India and other markets of the world. Nevertheless, one aspect in which Xiaomi is still far behind these companies is stocking. It’s not common to hear that a Huawei, Apple or Samsung flagship went out of stock swiftly and potential buyers cannot get them but this is a very common phenomenon with Xiaomi. On May 31st, Xiaomi released the Xiaomi Mi 8, Mi 8 SE and other devices but as of now, we are expecting the third batch of sales for the Xiaomi Mi 8 SE while the Xiaomi Mi 8 is will be selling tomorrow for the second time. These suggest that the company does not have enough stocking power of these flagships that’s why they are never enough for buyers.
Lei Jun promised that the stock of Xiaomi Mi 8 is the largest of all Xiaomi’s flagships, and we all expected that there will be enough units for sale but this device sold out in 1 minute 37 seconds in the first round of sales on June 5. The Xiaomi Mi 8 comes in three variants which include the 6GB+64GB variant which sells for 2699 Yuan ($421) while the 6GB+128GB and 6GB+256GB go for 2999 Yuan ($468) and 3299 Yuan ($515) respectively. Concerning the shortage of stock of Xiaomi flagship, Pan Jiutang, a partner of Xiaomi Industry Investment Department, said on Weibo
“The current sales of Xiaomi Mi 8 will definitely surpass many brands, but we are not proud of this, Xiaomi’s supply chain capabilities are still far behind Apple, Samsung and Huawei”
