Over the past couple of years, Chinese upstart Xiaomi has established itself as the best budget smartphone manufacturer and retailer in the country. It had helped Indians to shed the stigma attached to Chinese smartphones by delivery top-of-the-line specifications at a more-than-decent price offering. This also caused nightmares for other local manufacturers and brands who were trying to set up shop in this booming ecosystem.
Even though Xiaomi has lost the primary spot in terms of smartphone sales but the company has announced that it has achieved yet another milestone in India, thanks to its fans and customers. Manu Kumar Jain, the India chief at Xiaomi took to Twitter to report that the company has for the first time clocked sales of over 2 million smartphone units in the third quarter of 2016. In addition, it sold over a million phones over the 18 day period of online festive sales on both leading e-commerce portals — Flipkart and Amazon.
For the 1st time we surpassed 2+ Mn sales in one quarter (Q3 this year). A whopping 150+% YoY growth, from Q3 2015 to Q3 2016! @XiaomiIndia pic.twitter.com/9FElyK90Zw
— Manu Kumar Jain (@manukumarjain) November 28, 2016
With regard to the same, the third quarter has also outshone smartphone industry estimates to report the highest ever sale of smartphones in the country — 32.3 million. Xiaomi cites IDC to report that it has been able to attain a growth rate of over 150 percent year-on-year due to such bombastic sale figures in the quarter ending in October.
But if you look at the all-around scenario of the smartphone market, the Chinese manufacturer’s sales have been shrinking in comparison to its counterparts – Lenovo, Oppo, Huawei, and others. Huawei has recently claimed the pole position for being the most profitable Android maker, beating Samsung who has been battered due to the explosive Galaxy Note 7 fiasco. But, Xiaomi has claimed that the tanking devices sales figures do not affect the company’s financials as it isn’t making any money on the sale of these devices. It is instead making money on the sale of smart home devices and other accessories sold on its platform.
In addition, there has recently been insistent speculation that Xiaomi is looking to foray into the offline segment to further strengthen its grip on the Indian market — second largest after China. The company has also started straying away from the path of flash sales to other online channels to drive sales in the country. It has not only opened its first offline store outside China in Singapore but also mentioned that it plans to open about a 1,000 more in coming months.
Also, the company has been regular in upgrading its smartphone lineup over the years it has been operational in the country. Xiaomi has just recently launched a smartphone partnering with Google and is also running a permanent discount on the same, Xiaomi Mi A1 discount coupon will be applied automatically.
