Xiaomi sells 1 million phones sold in 18 days; to become top smartphone brand

Chinese firm Xiaomi sold a record one million smartphones in India in the first 18 days of October, its global chief executive Lei Jun has said, adding that it can become the country’s top smartphone brand within five years.
“I am confident that with the sustained efforts, we will be able to capture the largest market share in India within 3-5 years,” Jun said in an open letter, signalling that Xiaomi, known for bringing in high specs smartphones at affordable prices, looks to invest on improving its supply and retail base and after-sales services.
“A big round of thanks to Manu and Hugo (Manu Kumar Jain, India Head for Xiaomi and Hugo Barra, VP of Xiaomi) for their outstanding leadership, to everyone at Mi India for their dedication, and to the business teams in China for their support,” Jun said in the letter shared by Xiaomi.
“I would also like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to all our partners in India, especially Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal, for their support,” he added.
Currently, Xiaomi largely depends on online sales in what is its largest market outside China.
“The core of the Xiaomi model is creating high-quality products, making friends with our users, and operating our business extremely efficiently. This model has been proven in China. I believe that the Xiaomi model will resonate across the world, starting with India,” Jun said.
Jun, in the letter, labeled India as an “extremely important market in Xiaomi’s globalization strategy” and outlined several milestones of the company in India since August 2015 to September 2016, when the Redmi Note 3 sales, the letter claims, touched 2.3 million devices in just six months after its launch in online markets.
On October 4, Xiaomi had infact sold 0.5 million smartphones in three days of festive season sales on Amazon, Snapdeal and Flipkart, a massive leg up from the same quantity over 30 days, last year.
The firm has been selling about 1 million to 1.5 million smartphones every quarter this year, but with the large sale uptick in the first few weeks of October, analysts expect the company to report its best quarterly performance so far in the three months to December.
Xiaomi entered India in July 2014 through online flash sales that it pioneered in the country. The company’s performance slumped in 2015 when it hardly brought in new devices.
But it ventured into offline retail and bounced back this year, launching four devices so far. Xiaomi’s market share rose to 6.2 per cent in the July-September quarter from 1.8 per cent a year ago and 4.3 per cent in the previous quarter, as per Counterpoint Research.
This helped it become the sixth largest player in India’s crowded and highly competitive smartphone market led by South Korean firm Samsung.Labelling India as an “extremely important market in Xiaomi’s globalisation strategy”, Jun in his letter outlined several milestones of the company since August 2015, including Redmi Note 3 sales touching 2.3 million devices in just six months after its launch.