News sure go around fast especially within the mobile industry. You send out a story or a press release and expect dozens of sites to pick it up as fast as they can. Yesterday, US Mobile saw firsthand how a seemingly ordinary announcement was perceived differently from the way the company expected. PCMag exclusively shared that “US Mobile is the First Legit Xiaomi, Meizu Carrier in U.S.”. The article, rather the offer, was quickly criticized as it wasn’t really legit. We said that sales of Xiaomi Mi 4, Mi 3, Redmi 2, and Meizu M2 wasn’t allowed by the two Chinese OEMs.
Xiaomi also sent out an official statement that said “US Mobile is not authorized to sell Xiaomi products in the US”. US Mobile was also quick to respond to the allegations and reiterated that consumers must have access to all the best devices in the world. The MVNO explained that it partnered with third party distributors to bring customers’ access to brands like Meizu, OnePlus, and Xiaomi—the same way Ebay and Amazon are doing it: through the efforts of different partners, distributors, and suppliers.
US Mobile explained that they never claimed to be an official distributor as the products are fulfilled by a third party partner. In the case of the phones mentioned, orders are sold and fulfilled by Omni Electronics HK.
US Mobile’s reason for removing some product listings form the webshop was that they are not “purely” a contract free phone seller yet. They can enable carriers but devices would have to go through a long process, testing, and certification. US Mobile will remain in the business and will try to certify phones on the network.
SOURCE: US Mobile
