Why Xiaomi Always Struggles with High-End? The Problem Might Not Be High-End Itself

Since Xiaomi announced its high-end strategy in 2020, it has invested increasing research and development resources year after year. Product prices have climbed, and specifications have become more luxurious, yet Xiaomi’s high-end push always gives a feeling of “looking the part but lacking the essence.”

There are broadly two mainstream explanations. One suggests it’s a brand issue, where consumers are inherently unwilling to pay a high premium for Xiaomi. The other posits it’s a matter of time; with sustained investment in R&D and improved industrial design capabilities, the high-end market will eventually be conquered.

Neither of these explanations delves into the underlying mechanisms and deeper reasons. Stretching the timeline from 2020 to 2026, it’s clear that Xiaomi isn’t just failing with a particular generation of products; on the contrary, excellent products are not uncommon. However, Xiaomi exhibits a recurring phenomenon: the brand consistently fails to break through its bottleneck, and R&D investments never solidify and transform into a stable high-end product line.

Xiaomi phones have launched many product lines with distinct positioning. For example, the MIX series represents exploration of the future, the Civi series focuses on thinness and selfies, and the standard version of the Digital series once explicitly aimed to be a “small-sized flagship.” However, these product lines have either been discontinued, constantly shifted direction, or, while retaining their names, have seen their product definitions distorted. What remains are only those series that consistently compete on performance, specifications, and hardware metrics.

If only one product line were experiencing issues, it could be attributed to team decision errors. But when different teams, different products, and several generations of product evolution repeatedly follow this trajectory, it’s no longer a coincidence. It’s more like a long-standing underlying constraint within Xiaomi, slowly and continuously correcting the development direction of every product line.

Under this constraint, what truly remains stable at Xiaomi is not a specific product positioning, but a cost allocation method that leans towards on-paper specifications, known as “cost-effectiveness.” I call this phenomenon Xiaomi’s cost gravity.

Cost gravity means that, given limited resources, an enterprise will always prioritize a certain type of value that aligns with its corporate ethos and product style. When a product’s definition aligns with this resource allocation direction, the product can develop stably long-term. Once a conflict arises, the product’s initial definition will be “corrected.”

Understanding this requires addressing a concept rarely seriously considered: cost-effectiveness (性价比).

The public understands cost-effectiveness as a consumer-friendly label, but from a product development perspective, it’s a very straightforward engineering problem. Any product’s cost is limited, and limitation means trade-offs must be made. So-called cost-effectiveness isn’t essentially about being cheap; it’s about an enterprise prioritizing its limited costs into those on-paper specifications that can be directly compared.

Xiaomi’s long-standing choice has been to invest costs where consumers can directly compare, such as processors, screens, charging speed, imaging hardware, and storage specifications. This strategy itself is not problematic; in fact, it aligns very well with the communication methods of online sales in the internet era. It also makes phone specifications more transparent, as consumers don’t need to physically experience the product; they can make most horizontal comparisons and purchasing decisions based solely on a spec sheet.

However, a contradiction arises: if the problem is merely “can it be written on a spec sheet,” then thinness can also be written on a spec sheet. 170 grams vs. 200 grams, 7 millimeters vs. 8 millimeters—these are all numbers, and they are all comparable. So why do Xiaomi’s thin and light series still revert to the old path of “stacking specs”?

This indicates that whether a parameter’s value can be quantified is not the core issue. I broadly categorize parameters into two types: additive and subtractive.

Additive parameters are larger sensors, larger batteries, larger screens, more powerful processors, higher charging wattage. They can be continuously stacked, and the bigger they are, the easier they are to promote. The larger the numbers on the spec sheet, the stronger the product’s competitiveness appears.

Subtractive parameters, on the other hand, include weight, thickness, width, grip feel, and body volume. But they are inherently mutually exclusive with additive parameters. A larger battery means a heavier body, more complex heat dissipation means a thicker structure, and a larger sensor means a bulkier camera module. For every additive parameter enhanced, subtractive parameters require trade-offs.

More importantly, these two types of parameters do not have the same perceived weight. Subtractive parameters are inherently weaker in perceived weight than additive parameters.

“8000 mAh battery” can directly become an advertising slogan, while “170 grams weight” requires consumers to first understand what lightness means before it becomes a reason to buy. The former requires almost no explanation, while the latter requires market education. Consequently, for the same investment of cost, additive parameters often yield higher promotional returns, while subtractive parameters are more easily sacrificed in competition.

Thus, cost gravity doesn’t truly favor “quantifiable value,” but rather additive parameters that are both easy to stack and easy to promote.

This is the core reason why many seemingly different Xiaomi phone product lines ultimately share a similar fate.

Thinness requires actively sacrificing some battery and heat dissipation, and good industrial design incurs additional costs. These investments are difficult to directly translate into advantages on a spec sheet. Therefore, when a product’s definition conflicts with additive parameters, Xiaomi will inevitably make the subtractive parameters, which were core to the product’s definition, yield.

This distortion usually appears in two forms.

One is horizontal betrayal, which means introducing a product within the same generation that has nothing to do with the series’ overall positioning. The CC9 series is a prime example. It appeared before the high-end strategy, but this precisely illustrates that cost gravity is not a byproduct of high-end aspirations; rather, it’s an existing constraint that high-end efforts must face from the outset. The CC9 was originally positioned against OV’s thin-and-light selfie series, yet an experimental product, the CC9 Pro, featuring a 100-megapixel camera, was introduced within the series. 100 megapixels was an additive parameter with extremely high promotional efficiency at the time, but it had nothing to do with the series’ overall definition, ultimately causing the product line to lose internal consistency within the same generation.

The other is vertical drift, where a product slowly deviates from its original definition over successive iterations. The standard version of the Digital series is the clearest example. When the Xiaomi 12 was released, its 6.28-inch screen, 180-gram weight, and 69-millimeter width collectively formed its core definition as a small-sized flagship. By the Xiaomi 14, these numbers had become 6.36 inches, 194 grams, and 71.5 millimeters, respectively. Each generation saw only slight changes, which were not strongly perceptible in isolation, but after several consecutive generations, the original “small-sized” red line quietly disappeared, leaving only a regular flagship that is neither small nor large.

So, does Xiaomi have a product line whose core definition relies on subtractive parameters, and which has managed to maintain its product definition and survive for several generations? I reviewed Xiaomi’s product lines over the past six years: MIX, Civi, and the standard Digital series—none met this condition. They either gradually drifted, were discontinued, or exited the historical stage entirely.

The Civi series was the product line I thought had the most potential to achieve this.

The first-generation Civi was a very clearly defined product. It didn’t rely on performance or spec-stacking, but genuinely tried to build its product philosophy around thinness, aesthetics, and selfies. If Xiaomi could have maintained this red line for several generations, it would at least indicate that cost gravity is not a decisive rule.

Unfortunately, it ultimately evolved in the same direction as the Digital series. Weight and thickness gradually increased, the red line of thinness continuously receded, the product form became increasingly similar to ordinary phones, and eventually, the entire series was cut, replaced by the international T series.

The only ones that have truly survived stably long-term are the Redmi K series and Ultra.

The Redmi K series is the spiritual successor to Xiaomi’s Digital flagships before the high-end push, which is easy to understand. The Ultra’s high-end positioning is not built on a difficult-to-quantify experience, but on larger sensors, more complex lenses, and more luxurious imaging hardware—all of which are additive parameters. This means it hasn’t escaped cost gravity; instead, it has translated “high-end” into imaging spec-stacking, thus avoiding conflicts between definition and cost.

Xiaomi’s problem has never been an inability to make high-end products.

If a certain kind of high-end means better craftsmanship, more restrained dimensions, a more comfortable grip, and a long-term commitment to product philosophy, then it inherently requires the company to constantly sacrifice some specifications for the sake of definition. This precisely conflicts with Xiaomi’s cost gravity.

Conversely, as long as a high-end product can be constructed and defined based on additive parameters like larger sensors, higher benchmark scores, and more luxurious hardware, it will not conflict with Xiaomi’s cost gravity. The Ultra’s success isn’t because it broke through Xiaomi’s long-standing product philosophy, but because it happened to align with it.

Xiaomi’s product philosophy revolves around stacking on-paper specifications based on cost and price point. The essence of cost-effectiveness is a cost allocation plan, and Xiaomi’s “cost-effectiveness” is a plan that biases costs towards additive parameters—i.e., Xiaomi’s “cost gravity.”

So, returning to the original question, why does Xiaomi’s high-end always feel like it’s missing something?

The preceding discussion focused on cost allocation within individual products or product lines. But cost gravity also has another dimension; it occurs neither between specifications nor between generations, but between “now” and “future.”

Additive and subtractive parameters compete for the cost of a single product for sale. Whichever wins, the money is ultimately spent on the machine about to be launched. But there’s another type of investment that isn’t like this, such as longer system update cycles, cross-generational accessory compatibility, consistency in interaction logic, and continuous maintenance and adaptation for older models. These investments are not for the next phone to be sold, but for phones already sold.

Their situation is even worse than subtractive parameters. Subtractive parameters at least have a number—170 grams can be read, it just needs market education. But these systemic investments are almost entirely absent from the spec sheet; the money spent on them doesn’t generate any comparable items, and the returns are only perceived by users years later. In a cost allocation scheme driven by promotional efficiency, such investments are almost inevitably prioritized last.

This leads to that familiar feeling: chasing whatever configuration is popular, adopting whatever form factor is trending, new features appearing only on new models, and previous-generation products quickly ceasing to be seriously maintained. Each generation redirects resources to where they are most visible and effective for current promotion. It looks like constant progress, but nothing truly accumulates. The “sea of phones” strategy further amplifies this; the more SKUs, the higher the cost of maintaining existing inventory, and maintaining inventory is precisely the expenditure that generates the fewest parameters.

This is where the true barrier to high-end lies.

Parameters describe a product’s state at this moment, but a high-end premium isn’t paid for this moment. When someone is willing to pay six thousand yuan or more for a phone, they are buying not just today’s specifications, but a whole set of promises about the future: that it will still be good to use three years from now, that accessories will still be compatible, that the system will still be updated, and that they won’t be quietly abandoned in some iteration. High-end consumption is essentially a bet on the future, so the quality it truly requires is not temporary advancement, but long-term predictability.

This forms an almost irreconcilable structure. A company that invests almost all its costs into the spec sheet can make very good products, but it struggles to make high-end products, because it spends its money on “now,” while the basis for high-end pricing is in “the future.” This is also why, after being sanctioned, Huawei’s on-paper specifications lagged for several years, yet its high-end base did not collapse.

There will surely be a rebuttal here: Xiaomi clearly has HyperOS (澎湃 OS), and a “human-car-home” full ecosystem. Isn’t that systemic?

But if you look closely at how Xiaomi’s ecosystem is built, you’ll find it expands by breadth, not by depth. The number of connected devices, the number of covered categories, the number of ecosystem products—these are all numbers that can be directly recited at a launch event; they are essentially still additive parameters. What is depth? It’s models from several years ago still being able to upgrade to the latest system, accessories bought three generations ago still being compatible with the latest interconnected ecosystem today, and the same function behaving consistently across all devices. None of these are explicit parameters.

In other words, Xiaomi’s ecosystem itself also obeys cost gravity. It translates “systemic” into stackable quantities, just as Ultra translates “high-end” into imaging spec-stacking. This is the same mechanism recurring at a higher level.

So, the “missing something” in Xiaomi’s high-end isn’t in the craftsmanship, imaging, or design of a particular generation of products. It lies in its consistent failure to establish a predictability worth betting on. Products can get better with each generation, but as long as resources always flow to what is most easily seen in the present, users cannot be confident that they will still have a consistent experience three years down the line.

Gravity might not determine a product’s initial form, but it dictates its ultimate trajectory.