Xiaomi claims it’s not worried about its lackluster smartphone sales

Today, Xiaomi’s chief executive Lei Jun downplayed the company’s failure to hit the 80 million smartphone sales he estimated they would sell in 2015. The prediction was made in March on the heels of an incredible 2014 sales year, and Xiaomi was still moving smartphones like hotcakes well into the second quarter of this year. Now, with only a few weeks left in 2015, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer is coming up short on their mark, and it looks like they aren’t going to hit it in time. What happened here? Xiaomi was rocking the smartphone market with innovative sales techniques and fiercely competitive prices. The five year old company sold 18.7 million devices in 2013, then exploded to 61.1 million sales in 2014. It would seem like 80 million in 2015 is a reasonable – even modest – projection for this year. They already sold 34.7 million devices by July 2015, so with Singles Day and holiday sales boosts, the figure seemed well within reach even just a few months ago. Where did they go wrong?