After Apple and Samsung, Xiaomi to manufacture its own chipsets

Six years ago, Chinese start-up, Xiaomi was known as an Apple rip-off. But within a few years they've gone from mimicking the Cupertino giant to actually beating it, at least at home. In 2015, Xiaomi overtook Apple to become the top smart phone selling company in China, which is also the biggest smartphone market of the world.

But holding on to the top spot was not easy. Xiaomi continued to face intense competition from both Apple and other Chinese smartphone manufacturers, and subsequently lost its top position among the top three smartphone manufacturers in China in the last quarter of 2016.

This, however, has not distracted Xiaomi from expanding its presence in other global markets. It registered second place in Indian smartphone sales, for Q4 2016.

To build on this growth, Xiaomi is planning to take a major step as a smartphone manufacturer. The company will soon launch its own line of chipsets, something that only three manufacturers have been able to accomplish so far - Huawei, Samsung and Apple.

Manufacturing chipsets not only allows smartphone makers to reduce the production costs, but also gives their software an edge over other manufacturers. Samsung and Apple have complete control over their chipset manufacturing, which is why they can frequently introduce new features that require special hardware.

Xiaomi has reportedly joined hands with Chinese chipset maker Leadcore to form a joint entity named Pinecone (a literal transalation of the Chinese name). Xiaomi will have a 51 per cent stake in the company.

The launch event is scheduled for the last day of this month. Earlier, it was expected that Xiaomi Mi5c will be the first device to sport a Pinecone chipset but a few reports from Gsmarena suggest that the device will come with Snapdragon 625 instead.

Globally, the company has resumed its expansion to new markets, starting with Pakistan. The last time the company entered a major market was in 2015, when it launched its products in Brazil. Xiaomi's Mi5c and Mi6 are two phones expected to launch soon.