A Buyback and a Phone Launch: Why Xiaomi’s Stock Keeps Falling

Despite launching a premium smartphone in India's fastest-growing segment and spending billions on share repurchases, Xiaomi's stock hits 52-week low after Q1 revenue and profit plummet.

Xiaomi is spending billions to buy back its own shares, and it just launched a premium smartphone in India’s fastest-growing price bracket. Yet the stock is plumbing depths not seen in a year. The disconnect between corporate action and market reception has rarely been starker.

The company scooped up another 3.7 million class?B shares on June 10, paying an average of 26.32 Hong Kong dollars apiece for a total outlay of 97.4 million HKD. That follows a 3.6?million?share purchase at 27.34 HKD on June 8. Since the share?repurchase mandate was approved at the annual general meeting on June 2, Xiaomi has bought back 14.3 million shares — a mere 0.06% of its outstanding stock. The board is authorized to repurchase up to 10% of issued shares under a 20?billion?HKD program announced on May 26 and activated on June 2.

None of that buying has been enough to prop up the equity. Xiaomi’s stock slid to a 52?week low of 2.86 euros on the same day, before closing at 2.89 euros, down 3.3% on the session. The primary article records a slightly different snapshot — 2.93 euros, off 2.11% — but both point to the same truth: the buyback has barely disturbed the downtrend. Year to date, the shares have lost more than a third of their value; over the past twelve months the decline exceeds 50%.

The fundamental headwind is a brutal set of first?quarter numbers. Revenue for the three months ended March 2026 fell 10.9% year?on?year to 99.1 billion renminbi, while adjusted net profit collapsed 43.1% to 6.1 billion renminbi. Management blamed higher component prices and “intensified competition” in China for the squeeze. The smartphone business, which generated 44.3 billion renminbi of that revenue, posted a gross margin of just 10.1% — a reflection of the same pressures.

The electric?vehicle division is an even bigger drag. Smart EV, together with AI and other new initiatives, booked 4.0 billion renminbi of gross profit against 7.1 billion renminbi in operating expenses, yielding an operating loss of 3.1 billion renminbi. The segment’s gross margin shrank from 23.2% to 20.1%. On the positive side, Xiaomi delivered 80,856 vehicles in the quarter, up 6.6% from a year earlier, and R&D spending jumped 33.4% to 9.0 billion renminbi — a clear sign of continued investment appetite.

Xiaomi is trying to offset margin erosion in its core handset business by pushing up the price ladder. The Xiaomi 17T, which went on sale in India on June 10, starts at roughly 650 U.S. dollars after an instant discount of 5,000 rupees. That puts it squarely in the mid?premium segment, which grew 29% in India during the first quarter; the premium tier above it expanded 32%. The broader Indian smartphone market contracted 4.1% to 31 million units, but the average selling price hit a record $302, up 10.4%, confirming a structural shift away from entry?level devices. Xiaomi, which ranked third globally with 33.8 million shipments and an 11.3% market share (its 23rd straight quarter in the top three), needs that shift to stick. The 17T packs a Leica triple?camera system with a 5x periscope telephoto — a first for the T?series — but whether that will sway buyers in a segment dominated by Samsung and Apple remains an open question.

Technically, the stock is deeply oversold. The relative strength index sits at 31.3, and from a chart perspective the shares are trading 31.3% below their 200?day moving average of 4.26 euros and 12.5% below the 50?day average of 3.35 euros. Such readings can signal exhaustion among sellers, but they do not fix the earnings problem. The buyback provides a formal framework, not a daily demand guarantee; the India launch is a logical strategic move that has yet to show up in the numbers. The next quarterly report will be the real test of whether Xiaomi can arrest the slide.