Though Xiaomi had just recently accepted that it has grown too fast but the Chinese hardware upstart is now stepping its foot on the pedal to start phone manufacturing in Indonesia. The company has already produced its initial device, Redmi 3S, which was unveiled at a soft launch earlier this year. This plant will especially focus on the local market, which is also the primary reason for setting up operations in this part of Asia.
With this setup of a functional phone assembly plant in Batam, Xiaomi has now started operating under Indonesia’s Domestic Component Level law. The company is sourcing a certain value or percentage of hardware and software components locally, in order to gain necessary approval for the sale of its 4G devices in the country. This law further also adds that at least 30 percent 4G smartphone sales should be local and it can increase to 40 percent from 2019.
This is the company’s first international expansion plan post the departure of its Global VP Hugo Barra, who has now joined Facebook to lead their VR efforts. Talking about this production plant, Steven Shi, Xiaomi’s Indonesia country head and Southeast Asia head says,
We are committed to incorporating local manufacturing capabilities into our smartphones and we are also looking to work closely with software developers in Indonesia to further improve the user experience for Indonesian Mi fans.
This new phone assembly plant has been established in partnership with local players including Erajaya Swasembada, Sat Nusapersada, and TSM Technologies. And since Xiaomi can now sell 4G smartphones in the country, the company will produce its Redmi 4A smartphone at the aforementioned plant. It was previously producing the Redmi 3S at this plant in limited quantities, most likely as a test run. But, now it is targeting to achieve a production capacity of up to 1 million units a month.
Thos unfamiliar with the Redmi 4A, it is the smaller budget variant of the Redmi 4 smartphone lineup released in November last year. The phone features a 5-inch IPS LCD display and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 CPU coupled with 2GB RAM and 32GB internal memory — expandable via MicroSD card slot.
It also packs in a 13-megapixel primary camera with f/2.2 aperture, dual LED flash, and a 5-megapixel front shooter. It runs MIUI 8 atop Android Marshmallow 6.0 and includes hybrid dualSIM card slot with support for 4G LTE. This phone will be sold through Xiaomi’s local retail partner Erafone, with sales beginning by the end of February.
Xiaomi isn’t, however, the very first smartphone manufacturer to heavily invest in setting up manufacturing facilities in Indonesia. Apple has also spent over $44 million in R&D to continue selling the iPhone in the country. The Chinese giant, on the other hand, has chosen to keep mum on their investments and sales. Xiaomi launched its first phone, Redmi 1S, in Indonesia back in August 2014 along with several service centers across the country.
Xiaomi has also witnessed tremendous growth in sales and popularity in India as well as other South-eastern countries. The company has now also touched a turnover of around $1 billion in the country, which has been added due to regular smartphone lineup updates. It also set up its phone assembly plant in Vishakhapatnam and is now supplying ‘Made in India’ smartphones in the country.
