Xiaomi’s Two-Speed Reality: EV Orders Surge Past 80,000 While the Stock Stays Stuck in the Mud

Xiaomi's SU7 EV hits 80,000 orders, but shares fall 23% YTD amid margin squeeze from memory chip costs and EV cash burn.

Xiaomi is living a tale of two markets. On one front, its first electric vehicle, the SU7, has crossed 80,000 firm orders—a milestone that would make any automaker proud. On the other, the company’s shares are nursing a 23% year-to-date loss and sitting nearly 50% below their 2025 peak. The disconnect between operational momentum and investor sentiment has rarely been this stark.

To sustain the blistering pace of EV sales in China’s cutthroat market, Xiaomi is throwing generous incentives at buyers. Customers opting for the top-tier SU7 trim can pocket discounts of up to 61,000 yuan, while base-model buyers get slightly smaller breaks. The company is also offering subsidized five-year loans, with down payments starting at just under 50,000 yuan. To keep production costs in check, management has streamlined the lineup, dropping certain paint colors and trim options.

The strategy got a modest nod from the market on Wednesday, with Xiaomi’s stock climbing roughly 3% to €3.44. That move lifted the shares about 8% above the 52-week low touched on April 30, but they remain more than 25% below their 200-day moving average. The gap to the stock’s all-time high from June 2025 is still a punishing 50%.

Behind the share price weakness lies a concrete margin squeeze. Prices for mobile memory chips surged as much as 90% in the first quarter, forcing Xiaomi to build strategic inventory buffers and shift its smartphone focus toward higher-margin premium models. The company is aiming to defend an 8% gross margin in its handset business, but the component cost explosion is making that target harder to hit.

The smartphone pipeline, meanwhile, is buzzing with ambition. Leaks from a Chinese insider on Weibo point to a forthcoming 7-inch Redmi device—likely the Redmi K100 Pro Max, expected by late 2026—packing a 2K display, a 10,000 mAh battery, and a 3-nanometer chip. Xiaomi is reportedly developing three Redmi models with 10,000 mAh cells and 100-watt fast charging, spanning the Note and K series. Most of these, however, may never reach European buyers, as the company’s single-cell battery design runs afoul of EU regulations.

Management is fighting the stock’s slide with an aggressive buyback program. Through the end of April, Xiaomi had repurchased HK$7.4 billion worth of its own shares—more than in all of last year—and plans to cancel the bought-back stock. That has provided some floor, but the shares still trade at a steep discount to their recent highs.

The EV push is burning cash, and investors are watching the cost closely. In the fourth quarter of 2025, Xiaomi’s revenue climbed to nearly 117 billion renminbi, with adjusted net profit of 6.3 billion renminbi. Analysts expect full-year 2026 earnings of 1.23 renminbi per share. The board meets on May 26 to approve first-quarter results, with the market bracing for details on how deeply the auto division’s investments are cutting into group profitability. A day later, on May 27, Xiaomi will release the full Q1 2026 report.

The big question is whether the EV order boom can eventually translate into a stock revival—or whether the margin pressure from both chips and cars will keep the shares pinned down. For now, Xiaomi’s two-speed reality shows no sign of converging.