The big scam: a company called phones Xiaomi and sold them as their own – CNET in Spanish

THE Zetta Conqueror was no more than a Xiaomi Redmi 2.

Forocoches / The World

MADRID — There are many companies who copy others and then there is the case of Zetta Smartphone, a Spanish company that from 2014 began to sell phones under its own brand, and gradually was doing it with a regional market within this country, although under its logo of “acorn bite” – in the best style of the apple bite of Apple – was hiding a big secret: the real manufacturer of the phone was Xiaomi.

The company, founded in Extremadura, a small region of just over a million inhabitants, succeeded in two years to establish seven stores, “Zetta” and more than 80 points of distribution of their devices, although in the establishments also sold other commercial brands.

An interview with all the hype on the web site The Spanish, a news portal with a national scope, uncovered the case of the “iPhone extremeño”. Unai Nieto, its young founder of just 31 years, said that he wanted to create a phone that would rival that of the company from Cupertino, and for this they had not a few coincidences, a logo bitten, a company founded by young and eager to take on the world.

however, this interview published at the weekend only served to the local brand is made national. All Spain could get to know Zetta Smartphone and the comments began to unravel. First in Forocoches, the most important forum of Spain located within the 40 sites, more widely read in this country, and then in the social networks, where the company came to be trending topic.

The fame of Zetta was born without a doubt on the Internet. In Forocoches a thread of conversation presented by the mark and according to the newspaper The World, it is there where they began the conversations of the users that led her to discover the similarities with the phones of Xiaomi.

One of the phones was turned on all the alarms was the Zetta Conquistador, which was not more than the Xiaomi Redmi 2 which are priced in digital stores does not exceed 150 euros, but the company stressed with their label acorn bite to cover up the logo of Xiaomi, put other tags inside to not see the details of manufacture and re-sold to between 185 and 275 euros.

Zetta managed to fool several media outlets before it was found the entire plot. A channel region of Extremadura presented to Grandson as the local genius, and although we have not managed to find the original video, several users have uploaded again to YouTube so that it is witness:

“In 2014, we started in the town of Zafra three friends that we devote to it. We were related to this world of mobile telephony. It was an illusion. All of the provisions of the sale have been met the objectives set by the company. Has everything went very well, we are going from strength to strength”, he said then Grandson, to whom the Spanish press qualifies now having “invented an imaginary world” and have believed the lie.

The phones Zetta came in boxes different from Xiaomi.

Web Zetta / Country

The phones Zetta, devices, Xiaomi re-branded, changed the operating system from a version of Cyanogenmod, although the internal details of the actual manufacturer continued to be in the Settings of the phone.

The consumer organization in Spain, Facua, is delivered through the social networks: “If you bought a mobile Zetta, you must refund the money. They have closed their website. We hope that the Prosecutor’s office and the Board of Extremadura act”.

Zetta said through his profile of Facebook – now removed – that its website was under attack, however several media outlets revealed that the social profiles you had begun to erase images of the phones likely to avoid continued comparisons with Xiaomi.

it Seems that the acorn bite eventually not be able to follow the path of the apple bite of Apple.