After revealing sales figures and future intentions of selling the Redmi Note 2 in high volumes, Xiaomi is back yet again talking about markets and dominance.
This time round, Xiaomi chief Lei Jun talked about the company’s ‘second home’ and how they plan to conquer the market there — in India — in conversation with WSJ.
Jun was quoted as saying: “We’ll need to try our best to be successful in a few emerging markets in a big way. We give ourselves three years to be the top three or even number one smartphone brand in India. Our business model isn’t about how many phones we sell. We can’t monetize unless we become a highly influential player in a country or a region.”
Gizchina News of the week
“We give ourselves three years to be the top three or even number one smartphone brand in India”
“For example, we’re doing business in Taiwan and Hong Kong, but their population sizes are too small and it’s very hard to operate online businesses. The core of an online operation is population size. Therefore we want to sell to 10% to 20% of the population in India and other big countries. Then we’ll have the influence of a huge media organization and the opportunity to monetize in various ways.”
When you take into consideration the fact that Xiaomi only entered the Indian market in the second half of 2014, this looks like a tall claim… and testimony to the kind of success the brand has already seen in the country.
These are day dreams for Lei Jun..Xiaomi portfolio in India is highly deficient in 1. a phablet.due non introduction of Redmi Note 2 into Indian Market..sadly perhaps even they know they could sell a million here..but have left the field to Lenovo..K3 Note..as also Xiaomi has no phone in range of ₹ 3000-4000..which could be the vehicle to domination of smart phone market of India..where lots of populace is awaiting an upgrade from dumb to smart phones.
they have a ban on selling mediatek phones in India.
Lenovo K3 Note is a Mediatek, no?
Xiaomi got banned, not Mediatek, nor Lenovo.
Other companies might have fixed their issues.
Other companies are paying their loyalities to ericsson for their patent in 2g, 3g..
true
The xiaomi+mediatek combo was banned a while ago from india, due to some claim which Ericsson made on some brevets… Otherwise, xiaomi would have brought the redmi note 2 in their second biggest market, there’s no doubt about it…
But, if this situation won’t be solved, i think there’s a chance they’ll produce a redmi note 2 only for the Indian market (like mi4i) powered by snapdragon 620, once it’ll be available!
SD620 would be inferior compared to X10 though. I don’t think many people will be happy to get a mid-range and quite new SD instead of a performance proven MT flagship. It might still have some if not all the performance issues that bugged the 615.
SD 620 will definitely be powerful than mtk helio x10 atleast in cpu. Coz it uses the 4 core a72…
Not al all: the 620 is based on new cores a72, so it will be a top notch soc… It was classified in the 6XX range, but it’s not a midranger: on geekbench it made an higher score than 810 in some department… Long story short: the 620 will be next year’s 808, not a 615… It will be just a step behind the 820!
If that’s true then it should be good, still I’d like to see what the real world performance is like. Benchmarks are well and good, but they don’t tell the complete story.
Of course they don’t, but a capable soc in the hands of xiaomi is not a dangerous bet, i think 😀
The ban has nothing to do with Lenovo, it is Xiaomi specific. They are not allowed to sell any Mediatek powered phones in India.
Xiaomi doesn’t take serious international markets.
If you don’t respect your international fans as your Chinese customers you should stay in China.
it’s not about respect nor taking seriously. they are a business, they make more money expanding abroad.
they have issues, that’s pretty clear.
they have been banned, fined, etc…
also they have logistic problems and the fact that they always delay to introduce new phones in India is a proof of it.
Why they didn’t release Mi4i in China? It can’t be related logistic or legal issues. Because Chinese people would have kick their asses.
It was a phone that was designed with specific markets in mind, China was not one of them. Its a business decision every company in every industry makes. Ford sells certain trucks overseas that never make it to US shores, despite the US being the #1 market for trucks in the world.
Yeah they thought they can get away in international markets with not equally good value for money phones.
It’s a smartphone not a car or truck. Spec by spec matched phones released by other brands in China. Even Mi4c is basically same except the SoC.
It’s a product just like a truck. Every company creates products for certain markets and not others. It happens in every single industry no matter the product.
It isn’t such a product optimized needs for the target market. Doesn’t provide any benefit for the local customers than recently released China model.
It wasn’t released in China so there is no product to compare it to other than the Mi4 which costs a lot more than the Mi4i did. The Indian economy as a whole isn’t as strong as the Chinese economy was when it was released (China’s economy has been tanking ever since).
exactly, that phone was designed for the Indian market.
it’s really funny reading comments like “lack of respect” or “kicking assess”.
they think Xiaomi has some sort of monopoly and they can take advantage of their customers that have no other alternative.
truth is that Xiaomi, Meizu, Lenovo, Micromax have to make the best product at the best price because the competition in China and India is tough.
if they make a crappy product then both Chinese and Indian customers have tons of alternatives, they don’t need to kick anybody’s ass.
Agree with you. Most people I know here in India get their phone selection criteria like this – dual Sim, sd card, camera back, camera front, headphones, temple run, ‘will u fix it if it breaks’. All these are good then Ok we are good. Not many ask what is the antutu score or processor. Mi4i got the right check marks on that list except for the last bit. It still sells for that camera.
Exactly and what is popular in one market (China) might not be popular in another (India) due to a variety of reasons from the differing economies to culture.
Give me just a single reason why Mi4i suits better for non-Chinese people’s needs.
Give me just a single reason why Mi4i didn’t released in China.
Give me just a single reason why Mi4c didn’t released outside China.
i can give you 2:
Xiaomi doesnt care of int’l market
Lei Jun does not respect Indian people.
Do you really believe that?
They wanted to launch a cheaper version of MI4 on emergent countries (cheaper devices might sell better) so they took the good of MI4, the save money on premium features, and they put the ONLY available option for the SoC.
they actually put money upfront, for project, manufactury, distribution, advertisement etc..
it came out an abortion and they might have lost money into that project.
if the MI4i didn’t do good for the reasons you know, why are you expecting them to release it in china too?
they are doing it now (renamed MI4c), once they fixed the problem (SoC).
the MI4c has not been released in India YET.
if they didn’t yet it doesn’t mean
they won’t do it later on.
actually history says that Indian people have good chances to see the MI4c in 6 months or so.
It could be marketing, it could be due to logistic problem, you name it.
I meant whole official Xiaomi markets not just India. Yep, I can clearly see they doesn’t put similar effort outside China yet.
You don’t get the facts right, you are saying SD615 was only available option, but it’s not true. I don’t need even say that they could bought MT6752 from Mediatek anytime. BTW even with it I would say it was overpriced at same price.
Mi4i never was cheaper Mi4. They could make it with SD801. You know it was available at the time and it still is.
I didn’t expect them release it in China. I should have said that they can’t sell it in China with that price from very first days. It was never intended to releasing in China anyway.
Though I didn’t expect that, I want them to discontinue the Mi4i and launch of the Mi4c in all the official markets as soon as possible, 6 months later isn’t acceptable even remotely. These markets isn’t dumping ground.
you can be sure they are going to do as soon as possible because that would be more money.
there’s absolutely no reason for them to wait rather than a logistic one.
what other options do our Indian fellows have? to buy a samsung,HTC etc for $800?
Or should Xiaomi do what Meizu does instead? charging $200+ for int’l customers? even Motorola overcharges for European market.
Xiaomi charges the same money or sometimes a non significant increase.
do you think distribution is free?
to do that they have to wait to make sure the manufacturing costs go down.
i think it’s more fair than what anybody else does.
but again, we have a different opinion here.
those are marketing choices, and since neither you or me have data to handle then we can only guess.
the MI4i was born specifically for the Indian market since they needed a non mediatek phone cheaper than MI4
that’s why they also kept the name MI4.
again, we can guess tons of reasons but the lack of respect or lack of care for international market are the least realistic ones
That can’t explain the reason why they released Mi4c in China instead to Mi4i, when they needed a cheaper Mi4 in China.
I said before that Mi4i isn’t India only, it’s on sale in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. Only exception was China til their Brazil launch.
that phone was created for that specific market.
i don’t know if you heard of it, but it didn’t sell very well.
so why would they keep the production of a phone that doesn’t sell, to try if it works in china?
that would be pretty stupid don’t you think?
they kept the good of it, they replaced the bad and now it should sell.
the MI4i will be discontinued, and once they will satisfy the demand of the Chinese market, they will release the MI4c in other countries as well, just like they did with their other phones.
but again, this is just a guess.
i don’t have any info more than public knowledge.
but i don’t start saying that they lack of respect, or they don’t care of int’l market.
it doesn’t make any sense
The fact is competition based on prices in other markets even India doesn’t fierce as in China. Now there are at least half a dozen companies in China offers good prices almost at Xiaomi level and sometimes even better.
Other markets lack that level of price competition. Designed for specific markets is a very lame excuse since you can’t list that specifics at all.
What benefits Mi4i has offer those markets Mi4c can’t offer?
the MI4c aka SD808 was not released yet, they had to come with a midrange phone and since they couldn’t sell mediatek phones they had no other choice but SD615.
the phone was well made, with a good camera and was priced well (until they found out that the SD615 was a piece of garbage)
I’m saying that it was priced well because i compare it with other phones with the SD615 (Nubia to mention one).
If the SD615 ended up being a good SoC then the MI4i would have been a bargain just like the MI4c.
you might say it was overpriced because you compare it to mediatek devices (but again, it was not a viable option for Xiaomi)
they made a specific revision of the SoC for Xiaomi, hoping to fix the problems, they worked on the kernel, trying to fix with software, they released the source hoping someone could contribute.
nothing worked.
What makes a MI4i overpriced and the MI4c a bargain?
they are the same phones, only the SoC has been upgraded.
Simple. SD808 makes it flagship class and since SD810 turned out so bad it’s best available chip on the market for most brands.
This isn’t Snapdragon vs Mediatek comparison. Spec by spec matched TCL 3S M3G was $45-70 cheaper.
Also Mi4c with SD808 released at same price with Mi4i.
That’s why one is overpriced, while other is bargain.
so for the same logic every year the phones should cost more and more because the technology gets better and better.
but I’ve hear you complaining anytime xiaomi doesn’t keep the same price.
make up your mind already.
Are you high? You were the one making excuses for overpriced phones ignoring the fact technology gets better year after year.
I said that Mi Note and Mi Note Pro is overpriced. Both discounted, Pro discounted even before its launch. Both still is overpriced.
I said that Xiaomi were late to discount Mi4, some said it will be discounted when Mi5 released. Look at what happened. Turned out its sells was slower than Mi3. Its price dropped months ago and most probably we will not see Mi5 at least a couple of months more.
I said that Redmi 2 is underwhelmed after Redmi 1s and they can’t sell it same price, guess what happened? First it released cheaper than its predecessor then they forced to release Redmi 2 Prime then came even cheaper Redmi 2A.
I said that they were too late to release Redmi Note 2, competitors is much better. Meizu M1 Note and others sold millions.
I said Mi4i is overpriced, it isn’t a flagship, it suits better Redmi line. What happened? It’s still on open sales for months while some thinking it will end in a couple of days. We saw much cheaper phones with same specs from other brands then Redmi Note 2 came out from Xiaomi then Mi4c came out and sealed the fact it was really overpriced.
They only could have sold 35 million units of smartphone in H1 while their target was 100 million for the year.
I didn’t critized them because I didn’t like them. Months later turned out I was right every single time.
Now I’m saying Redmi Note 2 and Mi4c is unrivalled price wise. I’m not giving you just my opinion.
“MI4 late to discount”
you talk like a marketing guru who’s handling company datasheets as we speak.
as far as i know when you keep the price for a while it means you’re selling good, you have no overstock and the demand is still high.
“Meizu and other companies sold millions”
right, but at that time they were going Qualcomm solo and a Redmi Note 2 with a SD410 would have been another piece of junk.
They have sold already 10M of those Redmi Note 2 (probably as many as Meizu did in one year).
MI4c and MI4i are the same mid-range phones. same prices same name, same “current” mid-range SoC from Qualcomm.
the difference is that last year Q’Comm line sucked while this one (on paper) is supposed to be good.
Xiaomi has been coherent with the line and prices, but we have a different point of view here that we haven’t solved yet and never going to happen.
Nothing wrong with having different opinions. I think our debate overextended again. So I will not answer.
But I have to say you get it wrong I guess Redmi Note 2 didn’t sold 10 million yet. Lei Jun predicted that it will and IMO he is a bit pessimistic about that.
ooh yeah, they can’t sell Redmi Note 2 in India for the reasons we both know otherwise they would make huge numbers only there.
BTW,the SD808 is supposed to last for a while as a mid-range SoC.
till today the SD810 is still considered the top class until it will be replaced by the SD820 in a couple of months.
Microsoft just released 2 new Windows 10 phones (Lumia)
a mid-range with SD808 and a flagship with SD810.
So you don’t get that the SD615 was mid-range from day 1, worse not a good one, while SD808 is still best available flagship chip for months.
Funny thing is Mi4i marketed as flagship by the company, while most of the people considers Mi4c as mid-range.
hehe, that was a marketing bullshit of Hugo Barra.
they have been abusing and now they might get a big fine:
http://www.androidauthority.com/xiaomi-investigated-best-645843/
I’m pretty much sure you know that I said it’s overpriced from day 1.
Of course it would be stupid trying its chance in China, that is my whole point.
I doubt that they gonna release Mi4c outside China. Otherwise I wouldn’t criticized them. Mi4 didn’t released in other markets except India and it released there 6 months later its initial launch, Redmi 2A, Mi Note and Mi Note Pro didn’t released in other markets including India as far as I know.
Redmi Note 2 seems China exclusive too.
Also we have strong suspicion that “i” stand for international while “c” stand for China.
i know that you said it was overpriced, just like you said it with almost all of their phones.
still haven’t figured which company in your opinion makes the best value phones (at launch, not 2 years later)
I said overpriced for the Mi4i, Mi Note and Mi Note Pro. Also I find Redmi 2 underwhelming for its price. Comparing to earlier Xiaomi phones.
Their latest phones Redmi Note 2 and Mi4c is simply unrivalled price wise.
Xiaomi used to be best, but IMO there isn’t a single company offers ultimately best prices anymore.
Right now the top non Indian brand in India is Gionee, they sell twice as many phones as any other foreign company in India.
Really? Am from india… Gionee started big. But when xiaomi released xiaomi mi3 the real price war started and then on no one cared abt gionee phones anymore. And they are no where in the top list among chinese phones in india. Xiaomi captured some market when with mi3, redmi 1s. But then again they failed to maintain the same success coz of little overpricing of mi4. And mi4i..The latest topseller here is lenovo a6000, a7000 followed by latest k3 note. Not gionee anyway
Gionee sells twice as many phones in India as any other foreign brand.
Its not true bro… People dont even consider gionee now in india. Do u have any links or any statistics to say so?
he’s a Gionee’s ambassador 🙂
Gionee should be paying me for this!
what???
you’re saying that you have it done for free so far?
😀
Unfortunately, although a few other brands have sent me test units for their phones. But my loyalty is starting to change from Xiaomi to Meizu. I am more and more impressed with the MX5 with each passing day.
the MX5 is a nice piece of hardware.
i can’t get into Meizu though, it might be due to their ROM.
i broke my screen on my MI4 and i replaced it (now i finally have a black phone :D). unfortunately i already have a dead pixel and i grew tired of this phone.
I’m drooling over few deals now (LE1 for $199, LEpro $299, MI4C) but i already promised myself to get one with the right 4G bands enabled so i might skip Chinese this round.
but you know me, i’m waiting for the MI5 too, the only phone that might make change my mind
(if it happens to be like the rumors say and if they keep the price to 1999cny)
The more I use Flyme the more I like it. Although I did pretty much replace everything with alternate apps such as Nova, Open Camera etc.
Foreign brand or Chinese brand? Interesting because according to the IDC’s Q2 2015 Indian Smartphone market report Lenovo was the top Chinese brand with 6% with Xiaomi-Huawei-Gionee combined making up another 6% share. Samsung clobbered everyone with 23%.
“Here is another fact that may take you by surprise – Gionee imported 3 times more smartphone handsets into India compared to Lenovo, and 4 times more than much talked about Xiaomi between March 2014 and Feb 2015.
With close to 3.8 million units imported during this time, Gionee is one of the largest Smartphone importers in India. The next highest import figures are for ZTE who imported approximately 1.8 million units during the same time.” – International Business Times.
I don’t think I need to tell you, our resident “marketing” guy, importing and sales are not the same thing. (Yes I’m going to start putting the word “marketing” it quotes now for your title)
Let the sales speak for themselves. Any company who imports a lot but doesn’t sell is no different then a fat guy who sucks in his gut when a beautiful women walks by; things aren’t what they appear to be. You’re suggesting just because they’re importing the most therefore they must be selling the most but the most recent IDC report suggests otherwise.
I don’t need to tell you our resident “troll”, IDC isn’t the most accurate source to quote. I also don’t need to tell you that revenue doesn’t grow 550% from year to year without selling phones. But again as our resident “troll” who thinks he knows everything you already knew this.
“While most of the online Indian junta has been focusing on Xiaomi, Micromax and others in India, there is another company that is silently taking giant strides in smartphone market in India. With a growth rate of 550%, Gionee is probably the fastest growing smartphone company in India today.”
Basically he’s saying they need to go big or go home and by going big he really means selling lots and lots of cheap phones.
Xiaomi could definitely gain back their mi3 popularity if they release their mi4c in india with the same price tag or little higher. But they can swipe off the indian market if they settle the mediatek issue with erricsson and release the redmi note 2 at around 10k