As per a report from The Guardian, India is set to be the second largest market for mobile phones in 2014 and it's no wonder that every mobile phone brand wants to make its presence felt here. All the Chinese smartphone brands are flocking to India one by one. Gionee made it's entry in India sometime in 2013 with the launch of Dream D1. Oppo made its entry in India early this year with the launch of Oppo N1 and then we heard about Xiaomi's plans to enter India very soon.
But according to a report from TechInAsia, Xiaomi might want to enter other important markets in South-East Asia before it enters India. Here's the chronological list of countries which Hugo Barra (former Vice President of Android Product Management), vice president for international markets has laid out for Xiaomi's launch.
- Malaysia
- Indonesia, Philippines
- Thailand
- India
- Brazil, Mexico, other Latin-American countries
Hugo Barra, speaking at the China 2.0 forum said that Xiaomi wants to capture a significant market share in South East Asia before jumping to India. Xiaomi's plans are to reach Lenovo's level in terms of sales. They are aiming to sell 60 million smartphones in 2014 and reach 100 million smartphones in 2015. A large part of Xiaomi's success are attributed to its smartphone line-up which offer's great value for money where they sell the devices at almost cost price and earns profit on additional services and accessories for their devices. Also, its online 'flash sales' strategy has met great success where the company sells devices only online at the said time and date.
Xiaomi might enter India with the high-end Mi-3S and the mid-range Redmi Note. The Mi-3S comes with a 5 inch 1080p screen, Snapdragon 801 processor, 3GB of RAM, 13MP camera and an 8MP front-facing camera along with 4G LTE connectivity. The Redmi Note comes with 5.5 inch HD IPS touchscreen, 13MP AF camera with full HD video recording, 1.7GHz octa-core MT6592 processor, 2GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage and a 3200 mAH battery. Xiaomi's entry in India will hurt not only Micromax, Karbonn, Samsung, HTC, Sony, Nokia and Xolo but also Chinese brands like Gionee and Oppo.
