小米

Xiaomi's name 小米 (Xiǎo mǐ) means 'millet/little rice' in Chinese — this is the company's original Chinese name, and 'Xiaomi' is the romanization. Founder Lei Jun chose 小米 because millet was an important sustaining grain in Chinese history, implying the company would be a foundation of Chinese tech.

Character-by-character pronunciation

小米 uses 2 characters to represent the brand name in Chinese. Each character contributes to the phonetic or semantic rendering.