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Americans looking at a list of the most popular smartphone brands across the globe may be confronted with a stark realization: we are systematically cut off from some of the most exciting mobile tech on the market. Most consumers are stuck choosing between smartphones from a handful of brands —primarily Apple, Samsung, Google and Motorola. But take a trip abroad, and you'll find a cornucopia of brands. Foreign markets enjoy access to devices from companies including Oppo, RealMe, Honor, Huawei and, of course, Xiaomi.
Despite being unavailable stateside, Xiaomi is the third most popular mobile vendor in the world at the time of this writing, holding just under 10% of the global market. Many Yanks may assume that they've never been able to put their mitts on the latest flagships from Xiaomi, such as the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, because the phones are Chinese in origin and therefore banned in the United States. But that's not the case.
While the technological rivalry between the US and China has been tumultuous in recent years, with everything from smartphones to Wi-Fi routers ending up on some kind of blacklist or banned list, Xiaomi products were only briefly the subject of one such dragnet a few years ago. The real reason its phones are so infrequently sold here is much more straightforward: The company hasn't made inroads into the US market on its own merits. Our commercial operating environment is not compatible with Xiaomi's own business principles, and, meanwhile, its offerings in China and elsewhere are getting better than ever.