"From the beginning, Xiaomi has con-sidered the mobile phone to be a converged gadget of software, internet services and hardware, not just a simple device." So declared Lei Jun, the charismatic founder of Xiaomi, a Chinese smart-phone-maker with global aspirations, during a recent meeting at his firm's headquarters in Beijing with Choi Yang-hee, South Korea's telecoms minister. Bland as Mr Lei's comments may sound, the meeting revealed something important about Xiaomi. That a South Korean minister would deign to visit a Chi- nese tech firm which until recently was barely known outside its home country, let alone sit through such a lecture, is telling. Such has been the Korean hubris over the prowess of its chaebol-most notably Samsung, the world's leading mobile-phone firm-that the scene would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. It shows how worried Samsung is of being upended by what another South Korean minister has called the "Xiaomi shock".
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