Shock! Xiaomi Makes Money!

Headline understatement of the year: Xiaomi Makes a Profit on Its Cheap Smartphones

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Inc., which was founded just four years ago, already is among the world’s largest smartphone makers.

Now a confidential document viewed by The Wall Street Journal shows that Xiaomi’s net profit nearly doubled last year, making it a lucrative business in an industry where most players selling cheap handsets struggle to break even.

Xiaomi, which a few months ago surpassed Samsung Electronics Co. as the biggest smartphone vendor in China by shipments, presented the document to banks in its recent pitch to raise $1 billion in loans for overseas expansion or acquisition.

A table in the document showed that Xiaomi’s net profit last year rose 84% to 3.46 billion yuan ($566 million) from 1.88 billion yuan in 2012. Its revenue more than doubled to 27 billion yuan. Another table included a forecast of a 75% net profit increase this year.

Another Sign Of The End Of Days

Google Books PDF Test: iPad Air 2, Again

I made my first trip to the Apple Store that’s alllll the way of the west side of 14th Street.

It’s the least impressive of their stores, seeming like a hollowed-out multi-story garage.

Also, the men’s room was in terrible shape!

Intel’s Weird AR Demo

At Best Buy Union Square today …

… this bizarre setup with tablets. There’s a demo game that uses the tablet’s back camera and that model landscape as part of the game.

Out And About Today

I’ve done a quick sweep of Tier 1 Chinese news.

Now I’m leaving the keyboard for the day for personal stuff.

Will also see if I can get my paws on a Nexus 9 and do the Google Books PDF Test.

There might be video late in the evening — although the way it usually works out, YouTube takes too long and the videos get posted the next day!

iLevon Leaks Large Phone

But it’s not from Xiaomi …

Weibo:

(There’s no larger image of the phone than the above.)

It’s from Dakele, which has a teaser page.

CUBE i6 Tmall Pre-Sale

Weibo:

Tmall page