Xiaomi, one of the leading mobile Internet companies in China, recently announced its foray into the Indian market with a range of flagship Mi smartphones and an exclusive partnership with e-commerce marketplace Flipkart for sale and delivery of these products across India. With that Xiaomihas also set up 35+ service centers, with dozens more to come, across India including two exclusive Mi service centers in Delhi and Bangalore to ensure a robust after-sale service and a hassle-free customer experience.
Commenting on bringing their flagship device to India, Hugo Barra, Vice President, Xiaomi Global, Said “Mi 3 is the fastest Mi p hone eve r. We are very excited to offer one of the world’s most powerful smartphones in India at an incredibly affordable price point of INR 13,999/-. We hope Indian users will love MIUI, our super intuitive Android-based operating system.”
The former Google executive who joined last year, said the company does not expect to turn a profit in India any time soon. He said the privately owned Xiaomi was planning to build India-specific features for its phones and set up a local team to help penetrate one of the world’s fastest growing smartphone markets.
China’s Xiaomi said it intends to invest heavily in India as the budget smartphone maker launched its flagship Mi 3 phone and other products in the world’s third largest smartphone market, currently dominated by Samsung.
“We realise this is a market where we have to invest heavily in and there’s no point in thinking about profits at this early stage.
What is the defference between Xiaomi and Mi?
“Xiaomi” is our company name and should be used when referring to the company. “Mi” is our brand and should be used to refer to all of our products. Examples include Mi TV, Mi Box, Mi 3. We also refer to our products generically with terms like “Mi phones” and “Mi devices”.
How it all started with Xiaomi
“We had teams all over, but every quarter we had this thing called the mobile leadership summit, where we did project reviews and strategy sessions. “Coincidentally, on my second day at Google, I was on a plane flying to Beijing, where we were having that particular quarter’s meeting.” It was there that he met Xiaomi president Bin Lin, who then ran engineering for Google’s mobile unit in China. It was the start of a working relationship that then was developed over years.
India ranks behind China and the United States in smartphone sales, with up to 90 million smartphones expected to be sold there this year, so we see India as a huge opportunity for us and are excited about bringing Mi products to this market.
