After creating waves in Indian smartphone market in July last year through online flash sales and hugely successful ad campaigns, leading Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is planning to open its own portal in India, through which they will be selling their range of smartphones in the country. Currently the company sells its products in India through Flipkart and Airtel stores. Xiaomi sells its devices through its official site, mi.com, in all the countries except India and Indonesia. Launch of the portal is expected to happen later this year.
“We are currently looking for warehousing and logistics partners in India, as well as deciding on a payment mechanisms like cash on delivery. It may take anywhere between three to nine months,” Xiaomi India Head Manu Jain told PTI.
“We have always stated that India is one of our most important markets. We have big plans for India this year… We are in process of signing the lease on a facility in Bangalore, which will be our R&D unit. This is the first one outside China,” Jain added.
However, they will continue to sell phones through Flipkart and Airtel. India is one of the largest markets for Xiaomi outside of China. The company has so far, launched three devices in India, Xiaomi Mi 3, Xiaomi Redmi 1S and Xiaomi Redmi Note. Xiaomi started selling their phones through Flipkart in July and through Airtel in November. Despite the flash sales strategy, which resulted in huge hype as well as disappointed potential customers, the company had a successful time in Indian market last year. The cumulative sales of the three devices launched till now have crossed a million units since the first launch in July.
India’s ever expanding mobile market, being one of the fastest growing markets in recent times (evident by the 82% growth in Q3 last year as compared to Q3 2013), has been targeted by multiple companies which launches devices with high specifications at mid range prices, and wish to expand their market beyond their home countries.
On Wednesday, they launched their last year’s flagship, the Mi 4, in India which will go on sale from February 10. The sales will follow the same process of registrations that was implemented last time, but there will be more units per sale day and 2 sale days per week which will ensure that Xiaomi will be successful in its plan to expand their operations in India. The change in strategy was the first step towards creating a larger market, as predicted by us in our last article. But the attempt to sell comparatively older devices in Indian market has disappointed geeks in the country. Now the launch of their own portal will probably give them more freedom with respect to new launches and sales and we will have their latest devices in India without any delays.
Image Source : Wikipedia
Also Read : Xiaomi Launches Mi 4 In India
Xiaomi Unveils Mi Note And Mi Note Pro
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Pratik Patil 
Sameer