When Xiaomi announced that it would be holding a big press conference in San Francisco, many people were excited that the burgeoning Chinese smartphone manufacturer would be announcing an expansion into the States, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. What the company will discuss is still a mystery but Xiaomi confirmed that a US launch would NOT be among the topics.
Dedicated gadget geeks will be aware of Xiaomi, a huge player in the Chinese smartphone market. In fact the company has become so big (and become big so quickly) that it’s now the third-largest smartphone maker in the world by volume, more or less on the strength of the expanding userbase in China alone. But most other people in the west, even those who know the major players of the smartphone market, might not even know the company exists. Xiaomi wants to change that. Xiaomi will host a stand-alone press conference in San Francisco on Thursday, February 12th. Current company president Lin Bin and global vice president Hugo Barra (who used to work just down the road at Google) will be presenting.