Tianshi Lv spent six years running Xiaomi in Peru, where he says the Chinese electronics maker’s share of the smartphone market grew from 1% to 30%, making it the country’s biggest phone brand. Now he has been sent to South Africa to try to do the same.
Lv, who took over as Xiaomi’s South African country manager in March 2026, won’t say what share of the local market Xiaomi holds today, or what share he is aiming for. In an interview with TechCentral ahead of last week’s launch of the Redmi Note 17 smartphone range – his first media interview in the role, according to Xiaomi – he said there were “different sources” for market share data.
What he will say is that Xiaomi now regards South Africa as “an important market and strategic market”.
The Peru playbook
Lv said the approach that worked in Peru has three parts, and all of them will be applied here: build awareness of the brand, sell a complete range of products across price points and sell through every channel – mobile operators, retailers and online stores.
South African consumers know their technology and are brand loyal, he said, which means Xiaomi has to “tell our story” to them before it can expect them to switch.
Asked why Xiaomi is so confident about a market where economic growth is weak and consumers have little disposable income, Lv did not address the economy directly. He said South Africa has a large number of technology-literate consumers and that Xiaomi is in the country for the long term.
He was equally reluctant to discuss how South Africans are buying their phones – whether operator contracts are losing ground to cash purchases and e-commerce. “The market is still very diverse,” he said.
Memory costs
Xiaomi’s push comes at a difficult moment for the company. Its global smartphone shipments fell 26% year on year to 31.2 million units in the second quarter of 2026, according to research firm Omdia, against a 6% decline in the overall market. Xiaomi held on to third place globally behind Samsung and Apple.
Omdia said that with more than half of Xiaomi’s shipments priced below US$200, it was the most exposed of the top five vendors to soaring memory chip costs, particularly in emerging markets where entry-level price increases weighed on demand.
Asked how Xiaomi is coping with higher component costs, and whether the Redmi Note 17 range is priced higher than its predecessors, Lv did not answer directly. Instead, he pointed to the new phones’ specifications, saying Xiaomi is bringing flagship features to mid-range devices.
The Redmi Note 17 range
Three models went on sale in South Africa last week, through Vodacom, Takealot, Incredible Connection, HiFi Corp and TFG:
- Redmi Note 17 Pro Max 5G: R15 999, or from R599/month on a 36-month contract
- Redmi Note 17 Pro 5G: R12 999, or from R499/month
- Redmi Note 17 5G: R9 999, or from R399/month
The Pro Max, the first Redmi Note phone to carry the Pro Max name, uses a 10 000mAh silicon-carbon battery – the largest Xiaomi has put in a smartphone. Lv said it supports 100W charging. It runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 chip. The Pro has an 8 340mAh battery with 67W charging and the standard model a 7 700mAh battery with 45W charging.
Both Pro models carry IP66, IP68, IP69 and IP69K ingress protection ratings, which certify resistance to dust, submersion and high-pressure water jets.
Xiaomi promises up to six years of security updates across the range.
Scooters, vacuums and TVs
Phones are only the start. Lv said Xiaomi is also selling robot vacuums, smart TVs and its Electric Scooter 6 range in South Africa. The scooters will cover entry-level to high-end price points and are aimed at lifestyle buyers and enthusiasts.
The wider product range fits Xiaomi’s “Human x Car x Home” strategy, which ties phones, cars and smart home devices together through a single software platform.
Lv had nothing to announce on Xiaomi-branded retail stores, which the company operates in many other markets, including Peru. Nor are there plans to assemble products locally, as Hisense does with televisions at its factory in Atlantis outside Cape Town, though Lv said Xiaomi intends to become “more and more localised”.
No cars – yet
Xiaomi’s electric vehicles have been its biggest success story of the past two years. Cumulative deliveries passed 800 000 on 7 September, CnEVPost reported, citing founder Lei Jun, roughly 29 months after the first SU7 sedans were handed over in April 2024. Lei has confirmed that the company will enter Europe in 2027, according to The Standard in Hong Kong.
South Africa is not on that list. “We don’t have specific information right now,” Lv said. — (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media
