It looks like the success of a smartphone brand does not only depend on how powerful their products are. Let’s compare two big names: Samsung vs Xiaomi to see which one is the winner of 2016!

Samsung vs Xiaomi: High-end vs Budget

Back to 2013, when Xiaomi started to become the front-runner in the smartphone industry, everybody could see that if they compare two phones with the same price, Samsung vs Xiaomi, the one from China would “kill” the one from Korea in terms of specification! Samsung, with the failure of Galaxy S5, was really desperate at that time because Xiaomi had ruled the budget segment.

At that time, many people were surprised that Samsung didn’t show any effort in taking back the budget segment by producing budget-friendly devices. They even thought Samsung had given up. But now, in 2016, it seems that Samsung has made a right decision! According to the latest financial analysis, after only 18 months, Xiaomi’s market value has dramatically fallen from 45 billion US to 3.6 billion USD! Meanwhile, in Q3 of 2016, Samsung has profited 3.82 billion USD – enough to take over Xiaomi completely!

Samsung vs Xiaomi: What is the reason behind?

So why and how did Samsung recover so rapidly? The answer is: Budget segment is never a wise investment in the long-term. Xiaomi did win in the first place, but then when countless brands started to attack the budget segment, Xiaomi has lost its customers! On the other hand, the high-end segment is the most beneficial one. Look at Apple! Their products are NEVER budget-friendly but they still gain billions of USD per year. Samsung has made a right decision not to follow the budget “trend”.

Instead, Samsung has invested a massive amount of money in the chipset and new technology. And now we see Exynos chipset and curved display, which are Samsung’s signature. The latest Samsung Galaxy Note , though packing the same processor as S7, still becomes best seller thanks to its Iris scanner and waterproof S-pen. Now look at Xiaomi products! All of them, besides the unnecessarily good specs, have nothing special. Remember that users buy smartphones not only because of the specs (in fact, many of them don’t even understand the specs) but also to have something to… show off! Too bad that with Xiaomi phones, they cannot find anything to be proud of.