"Mi Water Purifier was only released in July this year, but with over 600 thousand posts from 15 May to 15 August 2015, the brand's social media presence clearly outranked all the other brands by a large margin," says MIC research team.

"Most buyers during this period are young male adults aged between 25 and 29. They gave extremely positive reviews about the user interface, appearance design, and user experience of Xiaomi water purifiers."

Meanwhile, another one of Xiaomi's smart home appliance, Mi Air Purifier, was also rated favorably by Chinese buyers. Released in end 2014, Mi Air Purifier not only had the highest brand awareness compared to other air purifier brands, but was also the overall bestseller on Tmall during the researched period.

Figure 1