From no-one to No. 1: Xiaomi’s 5-year journey dotted with many milestones

As it completes five years in India, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is looking to introduce a host of ‘smart’ consumer goods such as smart washing machines, shoes, water purifiers and laptops in India.

Recounting the five-year journey for the company in India, Manu Jain, Managing Director of Xiaomi India, said earlier, several people scoffed at the idea of going ‘online-only’ without a marketing blitz.

“They called our strategy flawed. We set off our sales with 10,000 phones on July 22, 2014. But the online site crashed as the sales began. Since then, we have emerged as number one player with a share of 50 per cent in the online market and 20 per cent in the offline segment,” he said.

“Our plan was to become the number one in smart phone sales by 2020. But we achieved the figure in the third quarter of 2017 itself. And after seven quarters, we still are number one with a market share of 39 per cent,” Jain added.

The company’s seven manufacturing plants in four campuses churn out three phones every second.

Over time, the company has increased its offline presence too. Its network is spread across 200 cities now. “When we started, the online sales in the country were only 6 per cent of the total sales. This has grown to 35 per cent now, with the rest being offline sales,” he said.

“By the end of the year, contribution from online and offline would be equal,” Jain said.

Jain was here to introduce two new models that have been launched in the premium segment. The firm, which has already launched smart TVs and fitness bands, said the scope of offerings is huge. “In China, the company has introduced products such as washing machines, laptops, purifiers, projectors, scooters, bikes, drones and air-conditioners. Some of them will be introduced here as well,” he said.

He, however, did not provide a time-line for the launch of new products.

“We design phones, TVs, routers, laptops and operating system. The rest of the products we co-design with the firms in which we have invested. There are about 200 such companies in our ecosystem. We have launched about 80-100 products so far, with the rest being in stealth mode,” he said.

A ‘gold-diamond’ phone

Meanwhile, the firm has introduced a limited edition ‘gold and diamond’ phone. Likely to be priced at ₹4.80 lakh, there will only be 20 pieces of this special edition K20 Pro phone.

Each phone will have a panel made of 100 gm of gold with diamonds embedded on it. “We have not decided on what mode (auction, online, regular sales) it would be sold,” Jainsaid.

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