LOOOL I'm talking about high end/top Japanese, S. Korean, Taiwanese components suppliers like securing supplies of display panels from Sharp,Qualcomm supply processors, Wi-Fi modules to tiny, energy-storing ceramic capacitors etc.
A quote from the article link below says
: 'A significant portion of those Chinese handsets’ guts—as much as
50% by value, in some cases—is made by Japanese companies like
Murata Manufacturing Co. or
TDK Corp.'
'Chinese companies are boosting purchases of Japanese parts as they push beyond the domestic market, in order to upgrade their phones. In some Chinese-branded phones,
Japanese suppliers provide up to half of the parts by value, said Daiki Takayama, an analyst at Goldman Sachs'
Chinese Smartphones Lift Japan’s Electronics Business - WSJ
Its for this reason i believe Chinese smartphone makers like Xiaomi ought to move up the value Chain and invest more in R&D. Also Chinese component/electronic suppliers/makers have to really up their game, they seem to still be in the low end/middle end segment for now, which isnt very lucrative to be honest. China has the scale/industrial base/supply chain to do it, reason im surprise it still has to rely on Japanese,Korean and Taiwanese suppliers for most parts of its phones.
LGD increases supplies to Xiaomi 4 times - News - Xiaomi MIUI Official Forum
Chinese Smartphones Are Helping Grow Japan&[HASHTAG]#039[/HASHTAG];s Ailing Electronics Sector | TechTree.com
Japan parts makers cheer China smartphone boom - Nikkei Asian Review
Japanese parts makers riding China's huge smartphone wave- Nikkei Asian Review
Moreover as i said, Xiaomi value is merely an estimate investors assigned to it, its not yet listed. Moreover, this can quickly slide when the hype cools down(it always does), in case Xiaomi doesn't invest more on differentiating its product in the long run from others, instead of competing on price only. However, i have to say i dont blame Xiaomi that much, since its still a new company compared to other giants like Huawei, Samsung, Apple, etc who have been in business for quite a long time. So i still give Xiaomi some credit, hopefully with time it will keep its lights on. We will have to wait for 5 years from now to see how things play out.
Japanese(together with Chinese and Korean, Twain) component suppliers are also venders to Apple. That does not change the fact Apple is a great company and actually the most valued one in the world.