Factors that made Xiaomi the second largest smartphone brand in India

Xiaomi becomes the second largest brand in India.

| Published: Friday, April 28, 2017, 18:56 [IST]

Xiaomi, one of the popular Chinese manufacturers has become the second largest smartphone brand in the Indian market. Around 14% of the shipments in the first quarter of this year were from Xiaomi. In the last year, the same was just 3%.

As per Canalys, a Singapore-based agency, Xiaomi shipped 4 million smartphones in Q1 2017. The first position is retained by Samsung even this time. The Indian smartphone market is one of the rapidly growing markets across the world. There are more than 180 brands in the country and these are subject to sudden rise and fall. Xiaomi is one of the brands that has proved to be an exclusion for the past three years. Notably, the report adds that demonetization has left an impact on the sales of the Xiaomi phones for a short period.

Also Read: Xiaomi Mi 6 Ceramic Edition might be delayed until mid-May

Since mid-2014, Xiaomi has managed to post a steady growth while even established manufacturers such as Nokia and BlackBerry couldn't survive in the smartphone market. Let's take a look at how Xiaomi managed to gain success in the country making it the second largest smartphone brand.

Xiaomi painted a different picture

Xiaomi has changed the mindset that people have towards the Chinese brands. We say this as until 2013, the Chinese brands were not too successful in India except for a few exceptions. In fact, there was a perception that the Chinese phones were non-durable. With the entry of Xiaomi in 2014, the share of Chinese brands started increasing from 15% in 2014 to almost 50% by the end of 2016.

Xiaomi has hit the right pricing strategy

Xiaomi's secret to success is selling smartphones with high-end specs and features at reasonable price points. Though this seems to be a simple strategy, it is pretty tough to implement. Many other manufacturers have tried to adopt this strategy, but they have not been successful in implementing the same.

Flash sales model

The online sales model followed by Xiaomi helped the company in one way. Being a new market entrant, the company stayed away from spending a lot of time and money on setting up a tradition distribution network. Going by the industry experts, if Xiaomi opted for the offline sales model in its earlier days, it could have not been this successful on brand building.

Mi fans community

When many smartphone manufacturers were focusing on marketing their products aggressively through ads and commercials, but Xiaomi depended on word of mouth publicity. Even the Mi fans community helped the company achieve popularity and success all over the internet and social media.

Great products

Xiaomi's smartphone lineup includes great products those are value for money offerings. This strategy is definitely an asset for the company. Both the Redmi and Mi series phones are popular and successful.