Talk of the Chinese century has been ebbing and flowing for years, but the last 12 months or so have greatly amplified the narrative.
Though early 2024 stock market bloodbaths in the East Asian country maintained the angle that something was rotten in the People’s Republic, and though the highly anticipated finance injection proved disappointing by October of the same year, positive developments have been rapidly accumulating.
Few companies exemplify this trend as well as Xiaomi (HKG: 1810), a company long known for making relatively advanced smartphones and selling them at unusually low prices.
Looking at the Hong Kong stock market, Xiaomi has enjoyed remarkable gains in recent years and, since it halted its decline in 2022, its stock is 523.28% in the green to its press time price of 54.35 HKD.
The last 12 months have been particularly successful for the technology giant, which is up 324.61% within the timeframe and an equally impressive 191.89% in the last 6 months. Though the stock market advance of another Chinese firm – Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) – dethroned Xiaomi in 2025, it can hardly be said that it is lagging behind with a 59.85% year-to-date (YTD) rally.
Xiaomi’s achieves comparable stock market success to Nvidia
Interestingly, though neither the dollar value nor the percentage increase in Xiaomi’s market capitalization are not as impressive as those achieved by Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), a certain similarity is difficult to miss.
Both companies suffered substantial valuation drops in 2022, only to rise sharply and drastically. Nvidia’s market capitalization increased 643.86% from $364.18 billion at the end of 2022 to $2.709 trillion at press time.
Xiaomi ended 2022 at $35.82 billion and soared 390.98% to reach its market capitalization of $175.87 billion on March 7, 2025.
Why Xiaomi stock is soaring
One of the firm’s watershed moments has been the unveiling of its very own electric vehicle (EV) in early 2024 – a feat made more impactful by the fact that it came at nearly the same time that American technology giant Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) gave up on its EV dream.
The development only seemingly increased in importance last October when the CEO of the automotive giant Ford (NYSE: F) commented positively on Xiaomi’s SU7.
Beyond cars, Xiami has been involved with the artificial intelligence (AI) boom and received a vicarious boost with the release of DeepSeek – a platform that proved highly disruptive for Silicon Valley both due to the alleged low costs of its development and the decision to make the model open source.
Why Xiaomi’s rise might soon be halted
Despite the positivity and the seemingly relentless rally, Xiaomi may not enjoy smooth sailing for long as it might soon hit a proverbial brick wall. Specifically, despite expanding into numerous smart devices, it remains a company primarily known for its smartphones and its latest move within the sector has been an attempt to reach the more high-end market.
Unfortunately for the Chinese giant, that particular sphere is relatively crowded, and the Android side of the market continues to be dominated by the legendary South Korean technology firm, Samsung (KRX: 005930).
Lastly, with other Chinese mobile phone companies catching up, Xiaomi might soon find itself stuck between a rock and a hard place. Still, its historical track indicates that investors should not discount future growth potential, even if they’d be wise not to buy solely on hype and the 12-month rise.
Featured image via Shutterstock
