Dubai
Smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi is overhauling its market strategy in a bid to regain its strength atop the industry.
The Chinese firm was the top seller in China in 2014 and 2015 but lost ground to Oppo, Huawei, Vivo and Apple last year. The firm registered a 36 per cent year-on-year decrease in volume last year, according to International Data Corporation.
“We are still the number one in online sales in China. We are building a new journey on offline retail sales,” Xiang Wang, Senior VP at Xiaomi, told Gulf News after unveiling three models — Redmi Note 4, Redmi 4A and Mi Mix.
The 5.5-inch Redmi Note 4 is powered by 2GHz processor and coupled with 3GB or 4GB of RAM and 32GB or 64GB of storage capacity. The built-in storage can be further expanded up to 128GB using a microSD card. It houses 13MP and 5MP cameras. It is priced at Dh659 and Dh899.
The 5-inch Redmi 4Ais powered by 1.4GHz processor and coupled with 2GB RAM and 16GB storage capacity. It houses 13MP and 5MP cameras. It is priced at Dh389.
The 6.4-inch flagship Mi MIX is powered by 2.35GHz processor and coupled with 4GB or 6G RAM and 128GB or 256 GB ROM. . It houses 16MP and 5MP cameras. It is priced at Dh2,999.
Xiaomi, also touted as the ‘Apple’ of China, was founded in 2010 and is present in more than 20 countries.
“We are building 52 shops in China and plan to add 200 stores this year. Our target is to have 1,000 offline retail stores over the next three years,” he said.
He said that Xiaomi has partnered with overseas distributors to open Xiaomi authorised stores in many countries and is getting a lot of traction in Eastern Europe, Russia and Indonesia.
“We have invested heavily in India and we are getting the returns now,” he said.
In India, Xiaomi earned $1 billion in revenue for the first time in 2016, increasing its sales by 232 per cent, research firm Counterpoint Research.
“We will open Xiaomi authorised stores and shop-in-shop concepts in Dubai very soon. We have a strong fan base in the region but we did not interact with them directly before. From now on, we will come here more often and have direct interactions with our fans,” he said.
Step by step, Xiaomi aims to bring all its ecosystem to this region. While the company is best known for phones, it’s invested in 77 start-ups and now offers air purifiers, drones, TVs, speakers, TV set-top boxes, electric cycles, robots and robot vacuum cleaners.
Wang confirmed that it will launch a new smartphone chip on February 28.
When asked whether it will ditch Qualcomm and MediaTek processors, he said: “We have strong ties with other chip makers. We are launching our own chip in a bid to learn more about the chip technology so we can build more unique features into our offerings”.
“Our focus is still on smartphones but IoT is important because we want to offer full range of services to our fans. Smartphone will be the centre and everything can be managed through the phone,” he said.
He said that Xiaomi plans to launch more high-end and mid-range devices to its product portfolio this year to stimulate sales.