Xiaomi

Xiaomi is a smart hardware company that operates an ecosystem partnership model, with Dreame as one of its ecosystem partners . In the view of Dreame founder Yu Hao, Xiaomi functions as "a very good business school" where one can observe firsthand the problems a company faces at scale—he noted that Lei Jun still personally reviews every product and detail, an attitude of product respect that hardware enterprises need .

Xiaomi's hardware profit policy has been a defining constraint: Lei Jun set a cap of no more than 5% hardware profit margin . This created tension for ecosystem partners like Dreame, which Yu Hao acknowledged—"earning one yuan for Xiaomi, earning three yuan for your own brand"—though he argued the issue dissolves if a company aims for hundreds of billions in scale rather than mere tens of billions . Dreame itself entered the Xiaomi ecosystem as the last-ranked player before reversing its position through deep investment in core technology and supply chain control .

Beyond China, Xiaomi has expanded as a smartphone brand into markets like Egypt, where it arrived alongside OPPO, Transsion, and realme following earlier entrants like Huawei, which built Egypt's first smartphone production plant in 2015 . Xiaomi is also backed by Qiming Venture Partners .