Samsung executive joins Xiaomi to boost the company's online presence

Xiaomi has a good run in 2017. But the company is aiming to reach a new milestone. Thus in a bid to strengthen its position in the offline channel the Chinese smartphone maker has now chosen Deepak Nakra to be the new Offline Sales head for the Indian market.

Interestingly, Nakra has been working as Samsung India's Director of Sales (South and West India) for the Korean company's mobile division. This development comes as Xiaomi has ambitions to grab the top spot in India.

"Welcoming Deepak Nakra to the Xiaomi India family! Excited to announce that Deepak will now be leading offline sales for Xiaomi India...Deepak has worked with several top handset brands and telecom providers and brings with him 20 years of sales and marketing experience," Manu Jain, Vice President and Managing Director, Xiaomi India wrote in a Facebook post.

While Xiaomi mainly conducts its sale via online medium, the company about nine months ago started its offline business. Quite surprisingly the company has grown 20 times more during this short journey. "I'm confident that Deepak will help us strengthen this position even further!" Jain added.

The company has already set up Mi Stores in several key cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai Bengaluru, Gurgaon, and others. Xiaomi has even partnered with Future Group's supermarket chain Big Bazaar to expand its reach. Apart from this, the company is planning to expand its offline presence in the country and have 1500 offline stores across 30 cities by 2017-end.

Xiaomi is targeting key mobile markets and apart from its own Mi Home stores, the company has authorized partners to sell their devices. The handset maker is basically working with the 'preferred partner' model in the country.

Interestingly, from what we have heard so far, Xiaomi is hoping for 30 percent of sales in India to come through offline stores by early next year. Like the company has also partnered with Reliance Digital to sell smartphones across the country.

Presently, Xiaomi has revealed that its offline accounts for 20 percent of the sales in India. The majority is from the online channel only. Xiaomi strategy is quite clear and with the new appointment, it will exciting to see how the company will grow in the coming days.

Meanwhile, with its enticing smartphone launches, aggressive pricing, and offline expansion, Xiaomi has managed to garner 22.3 percent share in the quarter ended September. Samsung was very close to 22.8 percent share by volumes, according to Counterpoint data.