Xiaomi opens record 500 retail stores in one day in rural India

Called Mi Stores and opened on October 29, these are similar to the bigger “Mi Home” stores currently operational in metro cities.

“The company created a Guinness record for opening the maximum number of stores in one single day. Xiaomi plans to open 5,000 Mi Stores by the end of 2019 that will create nearly 15,000 jobs,” Manu Kumar Jain, Vice President, Xiaomi Global and Managing Director, Xiaomi India, told reporters here. “This new business will forever change rural retail in India,” he added.

Started with the online-only strategy, Xiaomi is fast expanding its presence in offline retail as well. In September, the company launched its fourth flagship “Mi Home” experience store in the country, in Bengaluru, along with a new office. With the purpose of strengthening its offline network further, Xiaomi said in September it wanted to open 100 ‘Mi Home’ stores in 2018 itself. The firm grew to a new high on the back of its successful Redmi 5A and Redmi Note 5 Pro series and refreshed Redmi 6/A/Pro portfolio, said the report. But the eight-year-old company wants to be recognised not as just another smartphone company and it began working towards this mission in 2014.  It is also venturing into non-technology related segments like luggage, shoes, apparel and more.

With over 50 per cent market share, Samsung has emerged as the top player in India’s premium smartphone market in the third quarter of 2018, a top company executive said here on Tuesday. “The past quarter has been phenomenal for us. For the whole quarter, in the premium category, we are at around 55 per cent market share by value. Exit September, our market share by value is 58 and volume market share is 63 per cent,” Aditya Babbar, General Manager, Samsung India, said quoting German research firm GfK’s numbers. Unlike other market research firms, GfK reports final consumption of the devices and not only shipments. Meanwhile, to further cement its position in the country, the smartphone player is working towards making its Galaxy A series as big as its best-selling J series. “We expect good traction from this series and plan to make it as big as the J series,” Babbar added. According to the company, the Galaxy J series has been its “most-loved” line-up with a base of over 60 million users. Upping the ante in the camera segment, the tech giant brought Galaxy A9, its first smartphone with quadruple primary (rear) camera system, to India at a starting price of Rs 36,990 for the 6GB RAM variant.  This is the world’s first device with quad camera system at the rear and the first from the smartphone player to feature a dual tone, reflective gradient design. The company has been betting big on the ever-growing Indian smartphone market. It opened its biggest mobile facility in Noida in July.