Tech giants compete for healthy consumers

At a recent Internet conference filled with China's technology tycoons, Jack Ma of the mighty Alibaba Group Holding Ltd teased Lei Jun, head of the rapidly rising Xiaomi Corp, by asking why a smartphone matters when the air and water in China are so bad?

So when the Beijing-based Xiaomi, the world's third-largest smartphone maker, unveiled a home air purifier in early December, many saw it as Lei's response to Ma.

The gadget, which can be remotely controlled via a smartphone application, is able to clean as as much as 406 cubic meters of polluted air in an hour, but more significantly, it is priced at 899 yuan ($144) when rival products with similar capacities sold by global players such as Blueair AB and Sharp Corp, retail at more than 4,000 yuan.