Apple vs Xiaomi
Apple finished ahead of Xiaomi in 3 of 3 money-backed crowd markets; Xiaomi won 0.
Markets where each side finished ahead of the other, counted on each market's latest story. Percentages are consensus within that market, among all of its sides.
- Apple 60%
- Xiaomi 40%
Apple vs Xiaomi: The Crowd's Money Keeps Backing the Fruit, but the Rival Won't Quit
Three Morfi markets, three wins for Apple, and a Beijing challenger that has spent over a decade making the leader nervous.
Rewind to July 2021. Xiaomi, a company that had put out its first phone, the Mi 1, only in August 2011, is crowned the second-largest smartphone maker on the planet by Canalys. In Europe, according to Counterpoint, it has just done something nobody thought a Beijing upstart would do so soon: it has passed Apple for the first time. The iPhone, on sale since June 2007, had been the thing everybody else measured themselves against. Suddenly it was looking in the mirror and seeing a rival in the frame.
That is why this fight never dies. Apple sells polish, a closed garden and the glow of the logo. Xiaomi, co-founded in Beijing on 6 April 2010 by Lei Jun and six others, sells high specs at low prices and has been nicknamed the Apple of China, a compliment that doubles as a dig. Which one is more popular depends on which tracker you open and which quarter you measure, so the argument is permanent, and everybody is right some of the time.
On Morfi, where people back their opinions with real money, the rivalry keeps resurfacing. Across three markets, Apple finished ahead in all three and Xiaomi in none. In the broad popularity markets Apple sits at 30% consensus, with Xiaomi at 17% in one and 11% in the other. In the head-to-head on smartphone experience, it is Apple 60% and Xiaomi 40%. All of these numbers come from opinion markets on Morfi and measure conviction, not sales. Our three columnists read them very differently.
The Fruit Wins. Again. And Again.
Max HypeTech & Gaming
Roll the keynote. Three markets. Three wins. Zero losses. Apple is at 30% consensus in the first popularity market and 30% in the second, and when the question narrows to the actual experience of using the thing, the crowd's conviction jumps to 60% against Xiaomi's 40%. That is not a squeaker, friends. That is a boss fight with a health bar, and Apple has a lot left in the tank.
Why? Because experience is the one stat you can't spec-sheet your way into. Xiaomi is brilliant at the number game, and I tip my headset to it. It shipped more than 60 million phones in 2014 and was the top seller in China. It grabbed India from Samsung in Q3 2017 with 9.2 million units in a single quarter. Huge. But the crowd, with money on the table, isn't paying for a spreadsheet. It's paying for how the phone feels when you pick it up on a Monday morning.
And look at what the rival has to do to win in Europe: it needs a good quarter in a good tracker. Apple just needs to exist. Dr. Quark will tell you the lab results favour the challenger. I say the iPhone has been winning crowd votes since 2007, and the crowd keeps re-confirming it. Respect the champion. Queue the next round.
The Experiment Isn't Over, It's Just Underpowered
Dr. Iris QuarkScience & Life
Let me put on my lab coat and gently poke the data. Yes, Apple is ahead in all three markets. But look at the sample sizes: the traders number 41, 32 and 34. A real scientist would say that is a pilot study, not a verdict. And in the first market, Xiaomi sits at 17% consensus, in a tie with OPPO and Huawei, and just one point behind Samsung. In a five-way race, that is a cluster, not a gap.
Now consider the trend line, which is where the interesting biology lives. Xiaomi went from a first handset in August 2011 to the third-largest phone maker in the world in Q3 2020, shipping 46.2 million handsets. By July 2021 it was second, and as of August 2024 it held about 12% of the global market, according to Counterpoint. Plot that on graph paper and tell me it's a flash in the pan. That is a seedling that turned into a tree while everyone was looking at the orchard next door. The background is all on the company's Wikipedia page, if you want to check my arithmetic.
Fun fact: the Hong Kong listing in June 2018 raised $4.72 billion, which is the sort of number that tells you the market was already betting on the challenger long before Morfi existed. So when the crowd says Apple has the better experience at 60%, I'd read that the way I read a first result: interesting, worth replicating, and the 40% is not nothing. The value platter is real.
You're All Asking the Wrong Question, Dears
Grandma GigabyteTech for Humans
I've been watching you young people argue about telephones, and it reminds me of two neighbours quarrelling over whose apple pie is better while the whole street is eating Samsung's strudel. Look at your own numbers. In one market Samsung is at 27% consensus, only three points behind Apple's 30%. In another it is at 18%, ahead of Xiaomi's 17%. The real second place in this contest has nothing to do with Beijing or Cupertino. It's the Korean at the back of the kitchen.
And here's the thing about 'most popular'. Popular with whom, and measured when? The research notes say plainly that rankings change depending on which tracker you use and which quarter you measure. That is like asking who makes the best soup without saying whether it's January or July. Chef Basil Brawl's dead-heat story called Apple and Xiaomi a tie, while Madame Odds crowned Apple over the same market. Two reporters, one kitchen, two soups. That tells you more than any percentage.
So my wild card is this: neither, and also both. Apple at 60% on experience is a fair result, because people like what they know. But Xiaomi sitting at 11% in the other market, behind even OnePlus at 20%, tells me the crowd confuses 'phone I'd brag about' with 'phone I'd buy'. Ask a better question and you'll get a better answer. Now, who wants tea?
Round table
- Max Hype
- Dr. Quark, straight up: if Xiaomi is so strong, why is it stuck at 40% on experience in a market where it has a whole sales history behind it?
- Dr. Iris Quark
- Because experience is the hardest thing to measure, Max, and the crowd leans on familiarity. Sales are data and conviction is a mood. My opinion: that gap narrows the moment more traders try a Xiaomi flagship.
- Dr. Iris Quark
- Grandma, you say the question is wrong. What would the right one be?
- Grandma Gigabyte
- Whose phone would you hand your mother, and for how much? Price and patience, dear. Opinion only, but I think that Samsung question would shake the whole table.
- Grandma Gigabyte
- Max, three wins out of three. Aren't you a little bit smug?
- Max Hype
- Smug? It's called a streak, Grandma. And my prediction, strictly opinion: Apple stays on top in the next Morfi markets, with a consensus in the thirties for the popularity questions.
- Max Hype
- Dr. Quark, will you admit Apple is the safe bet?
- Dr. Iris Quark
- The safe bet, yes. The interesting one, no. My prediction, purely opinion: Xiaomi climbs above its current 17% and 11% consensus levels once the next market reflects a stronger quarter.
- Grandma Gigabyte
- And mine, for the record: someone creates a market that finally says which tracker and which quarter, and the crowd goes quiet for a minute. Then it argues anyway. That part I'm sure of.
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