China Smartphone Maker Xiaomi Not Afraid of Slowing Growth
STEVENS: Welcome back. Now, Apple is set to unveil a smaller iPhone and a new iPad in a few hours from now. The new iPhone is expected to be a little less expense with a design similar to the iPhone 5, but with updated circuitry to match the iPhone 6S. Apple is also expected to unveil a smaller version of the iPad Pro and new bands for the Apple Watch. But the company is not expected to show off the next generation of Apple Watch just yet. Now, one of Apple's main rivals in China is Xiaomi. But the young smartphone company has seen its once rapid growth start to slow. Xiaomi fell short of its target to sell more than 80 million smartphones last year in China, selling just over 70 million handsets in 2015. Well, earlier I spoke to Xiaomi's international vice president Hugo Barra, a former Google executive who says the company is doing just fine.</s>HUGO BARRA, VICE PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL, XIAOMI: 2015 was the second year in a row where Xiaomi finished the year as the number one smartphone brand in China. And perhaps more importantly is the stuff that no one is talking about, which is how is our mobile internet services business doing? Xiaomi is an internet company first and foremost. We use phones as a distribution vehicle for the software and for the internet services that we layer on top of our software platform.</s>STEVENS: To get that growth in internet services, you still need to be selling handsets. Are you at all concerned, though about the number of handsets that you are selling at the moment?</s>BARRA: As an internet company, of course, we need users, right, to whom we can deliver these services. There's room for growth in China. And we're also investing pretty heavily in other markets. India, in particular. India has just passed the U.S. and is now the second largest smartphone population in the world, only behind China.</s>STEVENS: There is a global slowing trend of smartphone sales growth. Some people say that's because there is a lack of innovation. What do you say to that?</s>BARRA: So I have a contrary view on that. I think innovation in the smartphone industry is still accelerating. If you look, for example, at the size of batteries, batteries are shrinking still at a pretty fast pace.</s>STEVENS: Is that what's going to be driving new consumers to buy smartphones, though? Is what is going to drive me to want to upgrade my smartphone?</s>BARRA: So, I think you're going to continue to see improvements in display technology and battery technology. A lot of growth, though, is going to come from developing markets.</s>STEVENS: Is the day, or the era of the explosive growth in smartphone sales now over?</s>BARRA: Smartphone market in China, 400 million a year. That's potentially close enough to saturation that you could call that market a replacement cycle now. Southeast Asia, another close to a billion people. And it's still a market at its beginning to make stages of growth. India still super early on. We are still at about 100 million smartphones a year sold. It would probably peak at 300 to 400 million. So also early stages of growth. And in Africa, another billion people, it hasn't even started.</s>STEVENS: It is more going to be going forward a much more developing world story than just a China story.</s>BARRA: Yeah, we have got to get the rest of the world connected.</s>STEVENS: Hugo Barra there doing his best to connect the rest of the world. Hugo with Xiaomi. We spoke just a couple of hours ago. Now, despite their high profile, Xiaomi still doesn't sell phones in the developed market. I'm talking about the U.S. or Europe. And Barra says that is on the cards for the future, but he is not yet giving any specifics dates. It's the announcement which has animal activists cheering. SeaWorld's decision to end the breeding of orcas in captivity and now a former whale hunter is throwing his support behind that move. Jeff Foster shared these pictures with CNN's Ivan Watson two years ago. They show orcas squealing in panic hours after they were captured. Well, foster says he managed to change his ways. And he's glad the park is changing their ways too.</s>JEFF FOSTER, FRM. WHALE HUNTER: I started a long time ago. And things have changed dramatically in the last 40 years. And I spent a lot of time in the field with these animals. I was just out in the field last week doing some tagging work and some research on the southern (inaudible) killer whales on the Washington coast. And we're learning more and more about these animals every year and what their needs are. And I think SeaWorld is -- you know, they have done an amazing job in the past. And they just need to change with the times. And it is now time for change.</s>STEVENS: Time for changed indeed. And on that note, we shall say farewell for now. Thanks for joining me here on News Stream. I'm Andrew Stevens. Don't go anywhere. World Sport with Amanda Davies is up next. END