Xiaomi has sent out press invites for an event in Bengaluru on May 11, where it is set to launch its first Mi Home store in India. The Mi Home store will be its first of a kind effort in the country, and is a milestone in Xiaomi’s small but significant journey in the Indian market.Manu Jain Group Vice President, and Managing Director, Xiaomi India has also given a hint on Twitter that Xiaomi has three events lined up for Indian this month starting with the Mi Home. Information around the other two events has not been revealed.
https://twitter.com/manukumarjain/status/860032693978800128
The launch will happen on 11 May and will see Manu Jain, Group Vice President, and Managing Director, Xiaomi India present for the opening. For those of you who don’t know, Xiaomi has special Mi Home stores in China where it showcases all of its products under one roof. The Home Store will sell accessories and products like power banks, headphones, Mi Band, Mi Air Purifier, and much more, but it isn’t sure whether the store will sell smartphones immediately. Bengaluru will be the first city to get the Mi Home store, but presumably other cities will get the stores as well, in the future.
Xiaomi primarily used online channels outside of China to sell its smartphones, but from October last year, it forayed into offline outside of its home country. The first country after China to get the Mi Home Store was Singapore, and now, after the Benglauru launch, there will be stores in five markets altogether – India, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
The Chinese company has been redefining the Indian smartphone market ever since it entered in 2014. Last month, research firm Strategy Analytics published a study that states that Xiaomi is now apparently ranked as the most preferred smartphone brand for Indian Android users looking to upgrade their smartphones in 2017. The report notes that Xiaomi topped the preferred brands chart for the next smartphone purchase with 26 percent share, followed by Samsung and Apple.
The firm claims that the company has grown 125 percent year on year, a significant momentum for any smartphone company. This is because Xiaomi mainly made smartphones affordable and qualitative in the country, something that was missing before. The report also notes that the Indian premium smartphone segment (above Rs. 35,000) remains small at only 6 percent of potential buyers with over half of Indian smartphone buyers likely to spend between Rs. 10,000-20,000 only, something that Xiaomi caters to very well.