A Review of Little Rice: Smartphones, Xiaomi, and the Chinese Dream

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Source: Wall Street Journal
On the Shanghai metro, everyone was on their phone: texting friends on WeChat, catching up on the latest Korean drama or reading the latest news on Weibo. Among the sea of iPhones and Samsungs, there was one type of phone that was not familiar to me: Xiaomi (小米; little rice). The longer I lived in China, the more I saw Xiaomi phones I saw.  With good design and relatively low prices, it became a favorite option among students at NYU Shanghai who needed to replace their stolen or broken iPhones. NYU Shanghai professor of Interactive Media Clay Shirky noticed this trend as well, and decided to delve more into the topic.

Shirky chronicles the rise of Xiaomi, now one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in China, in his new book: Little Rice: Smartphones, Xiaomi, and the Chinese Dream. Akin to a tech cult, Xiaomi has a massive fanbase of users who constantly give feedback to the company and dutifully await new software updates that are ritually released every Friday. Aside from devoted users, the brand is also a popular choice for anyone looking for a decent, yet cheap smartphone and is touted as the middle-ground between the ultra-luxe iPhones and Samsungs and the cheap cellphones that abound in the developing world. However, outside of China, the brand is not as well-known as the Korean tech giant Samsung or the ubiquitous Apple iPhone. Shirky’s book is a novella-sized introduction to the company and the state of tech in contemporary China.

Rather than going in explicit chronological order, Shirky broaches the subject in a thematic format, using broad topics such as “Internet”, “Smartphones” and “The Chinese Dream”. He uses each topic to tell the story of the company. Each themed chapter provides a comprehensive, yet succinct, overview of these topics in the context of the greater China region and ties in an aspect of Xiaomi’s business. He also ties in his personal observations, remarks from his NYU Shanghai students, and anecdotes from his time living in Shanghai. He starts with the founding of the company, detailing how the start-up found funding, and follows the development of their software and products.

His book delves into the complicated relationship that any Chinese company has with the government. The success of Xiaomi is intertwined with policies that the Communist Party puts in place for China.  For example, without Deng Xiaoping’s opening up and reform, there would be no place for start-ups like Xiaomi.  However, as soon as Xiaomi began succeeding, the government mandated that the company turn over their data and censor users. These surveillance mandates also became an issue as Xiaomi expanded into India, a corporate move rarely discussed or analyzed in Western media.

As informative as the book is, it suffers the same flaw as many other westerners who report on China affairs. So in awe of the sheer numbers and massive size the company (a must if an corporation is to succeed in a country of a billion people), the analysis fails to incorporate a comprehensive look at weaknesses the company has or more than a cursory look at domestic competitors. In addition, while there is always a gap between the time a book is written and when it’s published, Little Rice now stands in contrast in the reality of the current state and outlook of Xiaomi’s business. Its competitor Huawei now has a larger global presence and now has the largest market share in China. Currently, Xiaomi is actually not hitting its target sales and its current valuation at $45 billion dollars is now seen as unrealistic [2].

Despite the reversal of fortune, Little Rice is a good starting point for someone who knows little about Xiaomi, which is still not a household name in the United States. It is a quick read and provides the political and economic context not presented in Western news articles about the company.

Veronica Hernandez is a junior at NYU Shanghai.