Xiaomi was fined 20,000 USD for advertising 'sculpture'

Chinese phone company Xiaomi was fined $ 20,000 (more than VND 400 million) by Taiwan authorities because of fraud in product data sold.

In 2013, Xiaomi held 3 ' flash sale ' ( sales form in which a certain amount of goods sold in fixed time with big promotion ) cheap Redmi equipment in Taiwan on the 9th , December 16 and 23. Chinese companies announced the first two rounds, each sold 10,000 units and the third batch sold 8,000 machines. Phase 1 sold out in 9 minutes 50 seconds, phase 2 in 1 minute 8 seconds and phase 3 took only 25 seconds.

However, Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission ( FTC ) investigated Xiaomi's data and found that the company only sold 9,339 machines in the first round, 9,492 units in the second and 7,389 in the third. Although the data does not " warp " each other, the FTC still decides the penalty because Xiaomi violates the competition law in Taiwan when it does not meet what the advertisement is.

Because Xiaomi is admired for achievements in flash sales (for example Mi 4 ran out of stock in 37 seconds), the latest move in Taiwan could hurt the company's reputation. In terms of material, 20,000 USD does not penetrate the tower with a business with revenue of 5.3 billion USD in the first half of 2014.

Xiaomi was fined 20,000 USD for advertising 'sculpture' Picture 1
Xiaomi Lei Jun CEO (left) and Apple CEO Steve Jobs

Prior to the advertising of the 'sculpture' above, Xiaomi was criticized by TechCunch technology blog for blatantly imitating Apple's typical design. According to author Matt Burn , in the introduction of Mi 4, Xiaomi Lei Jun General Director also wore a black round neck shirt, blue jeans reminiscent of the fashion of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

Lei Jun constantly mentioned Apple products, even emphasized that his company had approached the iPhone factory to see what they could do for Xiaomi. Finally, the event ended with a ' One More Thing . ' slide, a famous Apple sentence.