Following it’s trend of selling their smartphones exclusively via online retail stores, Xiaomi has now expressed plans to launch it’s own retail website in India.
As reported by Mint, the company is in talks to tie up with various partners in order to launch it’s own e-commerce website. However, it may take some time as it can only move forward once it gets approval and the operations are in place. The website is expected to launch in early 2015.
Xiaomi currently sells its handsets and accessories in flash sales via Flipkart. According to Mint, Xiaomi’s e-commerce website will continue to work in parallel with Flipkart.com. The company has also hired a team of 10 people in India and approximately 40 call centre employees who’ll be handling the website operations.
Manu Jain, India operations head at Xiaomi had also told Firstpost that the company is in the process of setting up its own e-commerce operations in India. When asked about the timeframe, he said, “It would be very difficult to say. It could happen anytime between the next four to six months.” Manu Jain is also the co-founder of the popular e-commerce site Jabong, and could lend his expertise at designing a site for Xiaomi that suits Indian consumers.
Xiaomi had registered it’s local unit by the name, ‘Indian Xiaomi Technology India Pvt. Ltd’ in Bengaluru in October 2014, the Mint report added.
Today, Xiaomi, known as the ‘Apple of China’, sells their products online with one of India’s largest e-commerce company Flipkart.
According to reports, Xiaomi’s Redmi Note has launched in India and will be available in two variants: 3G dual-SIM, priced at Rs 8999, and a 4G variant priced at Rs 9,999. In an exclusive tie-up with Airtel, the 4G variant will sell in select Airtel retail stores. Flipkart has confirmed that registrations for the Redmi Note will open today at 6pm and the phone will be launched on December 2 as expected.
