Xiaomi's One-Day Blitz: A Foldable, Three EVs, and a Stock Still Down 30%

Xiaomi launched the 18 Fold, a tablet and three EVs on September 7, as its stock sits 30% lower year-to-date and India scrutiny lingers.

Xiaomi has never been a company that likes to pick a lane. On September 7, the Chinese conglomerate launched its new foldable, the Xiaomi 18 Fold, on the domestic market — and on the very same day rolled out a tablet alongside three electric vehicles under the Xiaomi Pengcheng banner. For anyone still wondering what Xiaomi actually stands for, that single day offered the answer: everything that connects consumer electronics to wheels or hinges.

The timing of the foldable's debut was anything but accidental. Two days before Apple was set to unveil its long-awaited iPhone Ultra Foldable, Xiaomi planted its flag with a device boasting a 7.68-inch inner display, a 5.38-inch outer screen, the in-house Xring-O3 chip built on a 3-nanometer process, and Leica-branded cameras. Starting price in China: 10,999 yuan, or roughly USD 1,650 — a deliberate signal that a company often pigeonholed as a mass-market player intends to be taken seriously at the premium end.

A portfolio that refuses to choose

The real story, though, isn't the hardware itself but the simultaneity of the announcements. Where rivals tend to concentrate on a single product category, Xiaomi fired on three fronts in one day: smartphones, tablets, and electric cars. The Xiaomi Pad 9 Pro Max runs the same Xring-O3 chip as the Fold, underscoring that the silicon strategy sketched out at the company's own technology conference in late August is being rolled out consistently across the entire lineup. The new N70 Pro, N70 Max, and N90 Max vehicles make clear that the automaking ambitions are no side project — they are meant to grow in parallel with the core business.

That breadth is Xiaomi's wager on where consumer electronics is heading: a player that delivers chips, software, and hardware from a single source can harvest economies of scale across categories that specialized competitors simply cannot match. Whether the bet pays off depends on customers following along — particularly outside China.

Costs bite, prices rise

A counterweight to the growth narrative arrived in late August, when Xiaomi announced price hikes for smartphones and tablets in Japan effective September. The company blamed higher costs for memory and other components. The Xiaomi 17T Pro with 12 gigabytes of RAM and 256 gigabytes of storage climbed from roughly USD 754 to about USD 879. This is hardly a Xiaomi-specific headache — it affects the whole industry — but it demonstrates that even a company built on scale cannot sidestep global supply-chain inflation.

Berlin debut, 380 products, and a muted market

Xiaomi pushed its transformation from smartphone maker to broad-based technology group at remarkable speed on September 3, using its first-ever IFA appearance in Berlin to present more than 380 products. The range spanned smartphones, smart home, artificial intelligence, robotics, computing, and electric vehicles. The trade-show outing highlighted a broader European strategy that explicitly includes EVs and proprietary chips. The message behind the product flood is hard to miss: Xiaomi no longer wants to be defined by cheap entry-level hardware but by a seamless technology ecosystem. The open question is whether that ambitious vision can dispel the persistent skepticism in the capital markets.

On the stock exchange, the operational tempo has at least provided some short-term relief. The share trades at EUR 3.04 and posted a gain of 4.8% today. The broader picture remains sobering: the stock is down 30% since the start of the year. Investors have so far shown little appetite to reward the grand announcements, with the enormous investment costs weighing on sentiment. Monday's close came in at EUR 3.05, following a 5.1% advance the previous day — a rebound that does nothing to alter the annual tally. Anyone who recalls the spectacular run to September 25 of last year, when the stock still changed hands at EUR 6.54, grasps the full extent of the correction: the current price sits 53% below that record high.

Premium assault meets entrenched rivals

The technology offensive is most visible in smartphones, where Xiaomi is forcing a direct showdown with the industry giants. The Xiaomi 18 Fold launched in China at prices between 10,999 and 14,999 yuan. According to Reuters, the rollout came two days after Apple's presentation of its first foldable iPhone, instantly intensifying the battle for displacement with Apple and Huawei in the lucrative foldable segment.

This push into automotive connectivity and the technological top tier undoubtedly demonstrates innovative strength. From an investor's standpoint, however, it carries considerable hazards. In the high-priced segment, specifications alone don't decide the outcome — entrenched customer loyalty and software maturity do. Huawei defends its home turf with extraordinary resources, while Apple commands devoted buyer bases worldwide. For Xiaomi, marketing and distribution expenses are likely to weigh on profitability without guaranteeing a durable gain in market share.

Regulatory drag in a key growth market

Running parallel to the expansion into new segments, unresolved conflicts are eroding confidence. Roughly a month ago, India's Serious Fraud Office recommended a detailed investigation into Xiaomi's business model. According to media reports, the recommendation rests on a government document citing possible violations of compliance rules and foreign investment law. That regulatory static carries real weight. India has traditionally been one of the central growth markets for Chinese hardware makers. Should official scrutiny lead to meaningful sanctions or operational restrictions, a key pillar of international expansion would start to wobble. Such proceedings tie up executives for months and scare off risk-averse investors.

High hurdles for a turnaround

The attempt to forge a new growth narrative around electric vehicles, proprietary semiconductors, and foldable phones is strategically coherent. Interlinking consumer electronics with future mobility solutions theoretically offers substantial advantages over traditional competitors. Even so, the question marks dominate in the near term. The intense price war against global heavyweights and the unresolved regulatory probes in India form a risky cocktail.

Analysts see the same ambivalence. Bernstein cut its price targets for Xiaomi and BYD in early September despite — or precisely because of — both companies' electric-vehicle focus. The signal: the market does not automatically reward product diversity with higher valuations as long as margins buckle under growth pressure. Xiaomi's strategy remains a balancing act between technological breadth and financial discipline. The company has shown with its product fireworks what it is capable of. Whether that translates into sustainable profitability will be decided not on a product-launch stage, but in the quarterly numbers still to come.