Xiaomi experiences sharp sales drops, but company’s global VP Hugo Barra is not worried

As far as sheer numbers go, Xiaomi does not seem to be doing so well. Despite some of its recent successes such as the launch of its shockingly beautiful Mi Mix, the Chinese firm has experienced a series of losses on its balance sheet.

However, that seems to be under control — and most of all not a problem, at least according to SVP Hugo Barra…

In its last round of fund-raising two years ago, Xiaomi was valued $46 billion, making it the most valuable Chinese start-up for a brief time. However, in 2015, it missed its smartphone target by a sizeable 12%, and its third quarter this year saw a significant 45% drop, too.

But, according to Barra (via Reuters), this should not seem like an alarming hint. The company, he says, values revenue stream over long periods of time, and makes most of its money via the products it’s increasingly focusing on, such as home appliances — or at least that’s what we can infer from the few figures it actually discloses. “We could sell 10 billion smartphones and we wouldn’t make a single dime in profits,” he said.

With its recent announcement about launching a “global” product at January’s upcoming CES (the first for Xiaomi) — and target the western markets outside of the homeland of China, particularly the US — we will have to see how things ultimately pan out. Considering the clearly high-level expertise that made a product such as the Mi Mix possible (among others), however, we truly hope not to see them in trouble anytime soon.