Xiaomi's $24 Billion R&D Bet Faces Twin Tests: SUV Production Targets and Rising Memory Costs
Published on 07/14/2026 at 17:15 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
Xiaomi is charging ahead on two fronts — electric vehicles and smartphones — but each initiative carries its own weighty challenge. The company needs to nearly triple its monthly EV deliveries in the second half of the year to meet a 550,000-unit target, while its Redmi Note 17 launch lands in a climate of rising memory-chip prices that threatens the already thin margins of its smartphone division. Shares traded at €2.95 on Tuesday, down 0.42% on the day but up 14.2% over the past week, showing some early signs of recovery from a 52-week low of €2.34 hit on June 26. Still, the stock is down more than 34% year to date and remains 55% below the September 2025 high of €6.51.
On the automotive side, Xiaomi has released details of its SkyNomad N90 series, an extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) that aims to take on established players like Li Auto and Aito. The flagship N90 Max packs a 1.5-liter turbo engine that charges the battery without driving the wheels, offering a combined range of over 1,500 kilometers. Built on the new Kunlun architecture, the SUV seats five or seven passengers, with front seats that rotate 180 degrees to create a lounge layout. The problem: Xiaomi delivered only around 185,000 vehicles in the first half of the year, meaning it must average 60,000 units a month in the second half — a pace well above any previous monthly record — to hit its 550,000 annual target. The SkyNomad series is expected to be the catalyst for that ramp-up.
In the smartphone arena, the Redmi brand launched the Note 17 and Note 17 Pro in China on Tuesday, skipping the Note 16 model number to align its mid-range naming with the flagship Xiaomi series. The Pro model features a 9,000 mAh Jinshajiang battery — a 54% increase over the Note 15 Pro+ — and comes with an industry-first free five-year battery service program: if capacity drops below 80% within the first four years, Redmi replaces it at no cost; if the same occurs in the fifth year, the replacement is a larger 10,000 mAh battery. The device also boasts four simultaneous water-resistance ratings (IP66, IP68, IP69, and IP69K) and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 that can survive drops from three meters onto marble. Yet the launch coincides with a difficult period for component costs. Xiaomi Group President Lu Weibing has acknowledged that rising memory chip prices are making it tough to pack high-end features into budget devices, and many once-standard specs are vanishing from the low-cost segment.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Xiaomi?
Meanwhile, the company is pressing ahead with its ecosystem play. HyperOS 4, based on Android 17 and described as the most important system update in years, has been rewritten largely in Rust and Flutter to purge legacy MIUI code. Early tests show a roughly 40% gain in interface speed and a 25–30% improvement in RAM efficiency during standby. The update will debut in China in July or August, with a global rollout later in the year. It forms the backbone of Xiaomi's "Human × Car × Home" strategy, aiming for seamless integration between smartphones, vehicles, and smart-home devices. The company will showcase that concept at the IFA trade show in Berlin this September, backed by a €7.4 billion investment in AI research destined for Europe by 2028 and a worldwide R&D budget of over €24 billion between 2026 and 2030.
Technically, the stock offers a mixed picture. It currently trades just below its 50-day moving average of €2.99 and roughly 24% below the 200-day average of €3.86. The relative strength index stands at 60.2 — neutral to slightly constructive — and annualized volatility remains elevated at around 41%. Whether Xiaomi can close its EV delivery gap and stabilize smartphone margins will depend on consumer uptake of the SkyNomad line and on how global memory-chip prices evolve in the months ahead.
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