iaomi won China by eliminating the distance between itself and the marketplace. Everything is sold online, direct to consumers, so Xiaomi can control the experience and customer support. It buys phones in batches throughout the year, rather than placing bulk orders up front, to exploit continually deflating component prices. Dozens of product improvements come from ideas submitted by customers on microblogging services such as Weibo. Lei has more than 4 million social followers in China and spends hours on MiTalk, the Xiaomi chat site, celebrating customer ideas and soliciting feedback. (Steve Jobs was never such a populist.) In 2012 the company started hosting an annual convention for fans and holds regular user meet-ups that have the feel of religious revivals, where the die-hard sing, cheer, play games and buy the company's colorful "Mi Bunny" family of plush mascots, which sell by the hundreds of thousands per month