Chinese handset manufacturer Xiaomi has surely shaken the Indian smartphone market with its Mi 3 sales reaching around 1 lakh units since July 22 and Redmi 1S, the budget edition, set to go on sale in coming week for Rs. 5,999. Manu Kumar Jain, Xiaomi’s India head of operations, recently told IANS in an Interview that they have plans to launch their flagship phone, Mi 4 post Diwali.
In the interview, Jain also told that along with Mi 4, they are going to launch the Mi Pad and Mi Band at the same time. Mi Pad is a tablet running on modified version of Google’s Android open source operating system for mobile devices termed as MIUI and Mi Band is a health band. All these devices are set to be sold through e-commerce site Flipkart, but he said they are in process to sell their products on their own website Mi.com.
“Redmi Note, which is the elder brother of Redmi 1S, with a 5.5 inch panel, will hit the market around three-four weeks from now,” said Jain, the co-founder of e-commerce portal Jabong and who earlier worked with McKinsey & Company.
Jain also thrown light on Xiaomi’s current moto in India. He told that putting the right input is their top priority and they do not believe in number targets. Their main target is to bring in the best in lowest price possible while equally maintaining the quality and service. As of service centers, Xiaomi has set up 35 service centers across India, including two exclusive Mi service centers in Delhi and Bangalore, to ensure after-sale services for its customers. Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Gurgaon to follow soon.
“We plan to have a Mi Home in Bangalore within four to six months.”
Jain said, “Mi Homes are there in China. The experience zones have a huge area. We convert it into a Mi store. Products are displayed with a huge amount of accessories and this also acts as a service centre. A small lounge or cafeteria is attached where people can enjoy themselves,” he further explained.
After the success of Mi 3, Xiaomi is confident that India is ready to accept their bold steps. It will be interesting to see how the other competitors responds to their moves. But anyway, it is always good to see nice tech coming into our hands. So are you planning to get Mi 4 considering Mi 3 is already discontinued for undefined period?