Xiaomi goes head-to-head with Apple, skips 16 and directly launches the 17 series. Lei Jun: Fully benchmarking against the iPhone!
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Shortly after the release of the iPhone 17 last week, Xiaomi Group directly declared war, announcing that it would skip the 16 series and launch the Xiaomi 17 series phones. Behind this rare product naming strategy is an upgrade of Xiaomi’s comprehensive iPhone-benchmarking strategy five years into its push for high-end products.
On September 15, Xiaomi Group President Lu Weibing announced, “The Xiaomi 17 series will be released this month, launching one month earlier than the previous generation. The series includes Xiaomi 17, Xiaomi 17 Pro, and Xiaomi 17 Pro Max, and will make its global debut with the fifth-generation Snapdragon 8 Supreme Edition mobile platform.”
Xiaomi founder Lei Jun immediately reposted and stated: “The Xiaomi 17 series brings a cross-generational upgrade in product capability, benchmarks the iPhone in all aspects, and will face it head on!” This marks a further radicalization of Xiaomi’s competitive strategy in the high-end market.
Lu Weibing emphasized that Xiaomi has invested more than 100 billion yuan in R&D and will ramp this up to 200 billion yuan over the next five years. This technological accumulation will be fully showcased in the Xiaomi 17 series, aiming to compete on the same level and generation as Apple’s iPhone 17 series.
Cross-generation naming targets high-end market?
This time, Xiaomi skipped directly from the 16 to the 17 series, aligning its naming with Apple’s iPhone product line. Lu Weibing stated this would be “the most significant leap in the history of the Xiaomi digital series.”
The three products have clear positioning: Xiaomi 17 is the “strongest standard flagship in history, featuring all-round major upgrades at no extra price”; Xiaomi 17 Pro is the “finest small-sized tech imaging flagship”; and Xiaomi 17 Pro Max is the “most powerful pinnacle tech imaging flagship in history.”
Notably, the series will globally debut the fifth-generation Snapdragon 8 Supreme Edition mobile platform, with the Xiaomi 17 series being launched one month earlier than the previous generation.
Lu Weibing revealed that Xiaomi started its high-end strategy five years ago, “learning from the greatest competitor and resolutely benchmarking against the iPhone.” He admitted that “Apple is still very outstanding, and everyone has seen the success of the iPhone 17 series,” but stated that Xiaomi is “confident enough to face the iPhone head-on at the same level and generation.”
This confidence stems from Xiaomi’s shift in product philosophy: “High-end with no shortcomings, moving from parameter leadership to experience priority and deeply integrating hardware and software.” Lu Weibing said that under this awareness, Xiaomi’s high-end push has made “remarkable and widely recognized progress.”
Netizens: Since they dare to jump straight to 17, the upgrade had better be worthy of ‘17’
Opinions among netizens were mixed.
Some netizens commented that skipping straight from 16 to 17 is acceptable, as long as the product upgrades are truly cross-generational.
Other netizens said, “Let's wait and see the launch specs, since they dare to jump straight to 17, the upgrade had better be worthy of ‘17’.”
Still others said they wanted to see how strong the 17 really is, and whether it can kill off the 16 in the cradle.
The smartphone shipment rankings in China for last week are out. By brand: Huawei has an 18% market share, vivo also has 18%, OPPO is third with 16%, and Xiaomi is fourth, also with 16%.
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