Smartphone maker Xiaomi has become one of the biggest Chinese brands to be publicly criticised by the state television station CCTV, after a report on Sunday night attacked the quality of its charging units.
In a measure of how far Xiaomi has come in just four years as a technology company, it has now joined Apple and Nikon in being censured on air. Previously, CCTV had criticised Apple for threatening Chinese national security with its iPhone location features; and Nikon for failing to remove spots from the lens of its D600 camera.
CCTV has also singled out the US coffee shop chain Starbucks – which has more than 1,000 branches in China – for being too expensive.