Chinese smartphone-maker Xiaomi has said it will not be able to manufacture low-cost handsets in India as it is already selling its handsets almost at the cost of manufacturing costs.

The company, which has a manufacturing facility in Andhra Pradesh, also said that it will not focus around handsets costing about $50, as it will not able to manufacture quality or features rich smartphones at that level.

“It is not a segment that we are interested in because we don’t believe that is possible to manufacture a really high quality smartphone and selling it in that price. So, our focus is on ₹10,000 and beyond product segments primarily,” Hugo Barra, Vice-President Xiaomi Global, told BusinessLine .

Hinting that the company would never do what companies such as Ringing Bell had done recently by launching Freedom at ₹251, and got into controversies, he said, “We have the same pricing strategy from the beginning. We sell our products in India reasonably to our cost, but not below cost (of manufacturing).”

He said the company was already bringing down the cost because of its manufacturing plant in India, which produces 75 per cent of the handsets it sells in India. He however, declined to give any figures.

“It’s been more than six months that we are manufacturing handsets with Foxconn at Sri City (Andhra Pradesh). We manufacture four models right now and 75 per cent of the handsets are ‘made in India’,” Barra said, adding that more products would be made out of this assembly unit.

New smartphone Meanwhile, the company has launched its new smartphone Redmi Note 3 and some of the features are better than the latest iPhone 6 plus. The latest smartphone with 2GB RAM and 16GB storage will cost at ₹9,999, while the version with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage will go for ₹11,999.

This is the first-ever smartphone in India equipped with the powerful Snapdragon 650 processor and comes with 4050 mAh battery that can last a full day on a single charge, the company said. It is also Xiaomi’s first-ever smartphone with a fingerprint sensor. The latest smartphone weighs 164g and measures only 8.65mm at its thickest point, despite the massive battery, the company said.

It has 16MP rear camera, equipped with Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF) for faster focusing, as well as ‘local tone mapping’, which adjusts contrast at a pixel level to deliver images with better contrast levels. It has a 5MP front camera.

Equipped with 5.5-inch full-HD display, Redmi Note 3 also boasts features to bring users from day to night. It has been also designed to supports all Indian LTE bands.

In particular, the support for LTE Band 5 allows users to fully utilise the Voice over LTE (VoLTE) technology incorporated, which will make it possible for HD calls to be carried over 4G, even when indoors.

The smartphone will be available exclusively on Amazon.in and Mi.com starting March 9 and soon, it will also be available on Flipkart, Snapdeal and offline partners, the company added.

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