Indian smartphones market set to rebound strongly

Xiaomi, which opened its 3,000th Mi Store in India yesterday, seems to very gung-ho about the smartphones market rebounding in India. Smartphones sale that touched its nadir in April due to the strict lockdown is all set to majorly bounce back now that almost all curbs are lifted in many areas.

Manu Kumar Jain, Managing Director, Xiaomi India, said the Indian smartphone market is set for a strong rebound, primarily driven by pent-up demand as well as new demand associated with online education.

In an interview to Economic Times, he said, Xiaomi's own production in India hasn’t reached its previous levels, and the company is still importing small quantities of phones from abroad.

"Eventually, the aim is to again go back to the same level as earlier, maybe even to a higher level. Of course, we keep facing challenges because sometime in some factory, there will be some COVID-19 patient and then shut down the line,sanitize. But despite all of those things, things have scaled up significantly," Manu Jain was quoted as saying.

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Xioami to ramp up its network stores

Xiaomi is also planning to increasing its network of Mi Stores that bring to its kitty 15 per cent to its total business in the country. Yesterday, after launching its 3,000 store in India, the company said Mi Stores were now spread across an impressive 850 cities in India.

With 3,000 Mi Stores, Xiaomi has managed to generate employment for over 6,000 people across India. Mi Stores are tear down version of their flagship Mi Homes but built in such a way that it is suitable for Tier 2+ cities & towns in India.

Currently, in India Xiaomi has over 75 Mi Homes, 45+ Mi Studios, over 8,000 Mi Preferred Partners (offline stores) and 4000+ Large format Retail partners.

Additionally, Mi.com still remains at the top as a single brand online smartphone channel with 44% market share as per Counterpoint research. During the lockdown, Xiaomi had also created its first omnichannel solution - Mi Commerce to blur online and offline boundaries.  

"Offline business contributes to almost half of our business in India and 30 per cent of that comes from Mi Stores, Manu Jain said.

Aside from smartphones, Xiaomi claimed that there was a strong demand for smart TVs, laptops and beard trimmers. “There are only one or two other categories where demand has gone down but the biggest one where the demand has gone down is shoes because people are not stepping out, We sell it only on our own online channel,” Manu Jain added.

Source: Economic Times

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