SUMMARY
Xiaomi’s Three Out Of Top Five Sales Channels Are Based In India
India has emerged as the top market for Chinese electronics and software firm Xiaomi Corp. The company has announced that the Indian market contributed 32% of its total global revenue of $18 Bn in 2017 – via three of its top-five sales channels, as per ET report.
Xiaomi – in its IPO filing in Hong Kong – revealed that of its top-five sales channels based in India; an ecommerce company, a consumer electronics distributor and a leading international ecommerce company occupy the second, fourth and fifth positions, respectively.
Although, the filing did not mention any names of these companies, media reports have quoted anonymous industry senior executives stating that Flipkart emerged as Xiaomi’s second-largest trade partner, while TVS Electronics and Amazon India held fourth and fifth positions, respectively.
As per Counterpoint Technology Market Research – Xiaomi, Lenovo and Samsung were the top three brands on Flipkart as well as Amazon in 2017. It further indicates that the company was India’s largest smartphone maker with a 31.1% share, followed by Samsung at 26.2% share in the quarter end of March 2018.
Xiaomi, after making its debut in 2014 in India, is currently one of the leading smartphone brands in the country after taking over South Korean giant Samsung, as announced by Counterpoint and Canalys in January, this year.
So far, Xiaomi has six smartphone manufacturing plants in the country. It recently added three new smartphone plants built in partnership with electronics manufacturing company Foxconn.
An earlier report by Inc42, highlighted Chinese players including Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo to have taken a 54% share of the smartphone market since their entry in India.
Making a stride in India’s smartphone market, Taiwan-based smartphone maker ASUS last month entered into an exclusive partnership with Flipkart to sell its ZenPhones. Similarly, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook also has plans to expand Apple’s smartphone sale in India.
India continues to become an important market for international smartphone makers. As per Morgan Stanley report, country’s mobile market is growing at 23% CAGR. Another report by Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA) hints country’s mobile market to have crossed over 5.7 Bn mobile phone users and 340 Mn smartphone users in 2017.
The opportunity thus allows Xiaomi to expand its footprints more deeper into the country, making its incumbents gaping for more revenue share in the nation’s smartphone market.
