Xiaomi sells a million smartphones in India in 18 days
Xiaomi may be struggling to maintain its growth in China, but the company is looking stronger than ever in India, its most important international market.
Xiaomi sold more than a million smartphones in 18 days in India, the company’s CEO Lei Jun announced via a letter today. Almost half of these smartphones were sold in just three days. By comparison, it took the company a month last year during the same period to sell half-a-million smartphones.
"India is an extremely important market in Xiaomi’s globalization strategy. It has become our largest market outside of mainland China," Jun wrote. "When we entered India, there was extremely fierce competition. We have achieved such extraordinary growth in India firstly because of our vision to bring innovation to everyone with our high-quality products at incredible prices."
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"Secondly, we have an amazing team in India. We will continue investing in India to deliver the best products to our Mi fans — expanding our supply, ensuring the high quality of our products, and further improving our after-sales service," he added.
The feat comes as India celebrates Diwali festive season. Diwali is as big in India as Christmas is in Western countries. People often use this occasion to do most of their shopping. Ecommerce companies also make the most of it by holding big sales and offer lofty discounts on many consumer electronic products.
Xiaomi’s growing retail and distribution network has played an important role in selling more phones.
To put it into some perspective, Xiaomi sold about 2.3 million smartphones in India during the first two quarters combined this year. Xiaomi’s growing retail and distribution network has played an important role in selling more phones, Tarun Pathak of Counterpoint Research told Mashable India.
When Xiaomi entered India, the company mostly relied on one ecommerce player for selling all its smartphones. But today, not only does it actively sell phones on all the three top ecommerce sites - Amazon India, Flipkart, and Snapdeal - it is also increasingly making its smartphones available through traditional brick and mortar stores.
India has become increasingly important for Xiaomi, which is now facing intense competition in its home market. During the second quarter of this year, for instance, Xiaomi sold 38 percent fewer smartphones in China than it did during the same period last year. Jun said he hopes Xiaomi to become the largest smartphone manufacturer in India in three to five years.
Topics Xiaomi
