The 9 October Hugo Barra has "celebrated" 3 years as well as as vice president of the section overall of Xiaomi. A sufficiently long period in which Barra saw the company move from China-centric smartphone manufacturer to creator of a real technological ecosystem with an increasingly international footprint. Xiaomi has recently entered the market of Russia, Mexico, Poland, Vietnam, Thailand and is also ready in some other Latin American nations. The huge US market is missing but the former Google Group Product Manager revealed to the site Engaged is Xiaomi has already started testing some phones in America by announcing the start of the complicated admission process in the lists of US telephone operators.
In the US, telephone carriers use very different radio bands, which is why they are often wary of overseas manufacturers and require very thorough testing to ensure maximum compatibility. On the other hand, the choice of distributing through telephone operators would greatly facilitate the distribution of Xiaomi smartphones being able to take advantage of already consolidated channels, a vast customer base, thus making up for the structural and experience gap.
The entry of Hugo Barra in Xiaomi has always had the aim of taking the company beyond Chinese borders and gaining more experience to land in the United States, it is therefore very likely that the team overall Xiaomi has been working on this project for some time to propose itself at the right time in the American market, presumably as early as 2017.
Earlier this year we produced a “special” version of the Mi5 to start the first tests in the USA. The global version of the Mi Note 2 is also on the way, which will allow us to carry out further tests. All essential steps that bring us closer to marketing.
Hugo Barra
Obviously Xiaomi could have followed the path already traveled by other Chinese manufacturers and organize its own distribution network as it has already done for some products (Android TV box and some accessories) but judging by the emphasis reported by Barra on these tests, it would seem that Xiaomi has already made his "safe" choice. Barra himself, without mentioning the brand, cites the failure of a Chinese company that underestimated the absence of the LTE 17 band used by the AT&T carrier: "They thought it wouldn't be a big limitation" says Barra, "and instead it was a flop "; "A greater collaboration with AT&T or T-Mobile would have been enough to obtain very different results"
We are not going to sell anything until we're really ready
Hugo Barra
As for Italy, it is useless to delude oneself. Our market is very complicated and poco profitable in proportion to other realities. To have Xiaomi products officially we will have to wait a long time.
