Xiaomi has indicated that while they are keen on adding more ecosystem products to the Indian market, the list of flagship smartphones will be limited to one per year, at least for 2017. "For now, we are focussing on the Redmi Note 4 and we will have an upgrade to the Redmi series pretty soon," Xiaomi’s global director of product management Donovan Sung told IndianExpress.com on the’s and sideline’s of the Redmi Note 4 launch in New Delhi.
Watch our video of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 review
On flagship devices like the Xiaomi Mi 5 and Mi Note 2, he indicated that India will get only one flagship for the year. "We think carefully about what products we will bring to India, and when it comes to flagship products our current thought is that we are still a pretty small team in India, given the scale of operations. We will launch one flagship in India per year, and are looking very carefully at what that flagship will be for 2017," said Sung.
Xiaomi is keen to bring more of its ecosystem products to India, he said. In 2016, Xiaomi introduced its Mi Air Purifier 2 in the market, but in China its range of products is much wider than just smartphones. Xiaomi’s portfolio in China includes the Mi TV, laptops, Air Purifiers, water purifiers, electric bicycles, rice cookers, etc
Read more: Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 review+video: The dependable one
"We are looking to bring a lot more ecosystem products in India as well. Our first ecosystem product in India was the Mi Air Purifier 2, launched just ahead of the heavier pollution season. As a product it was a good fit for India, and it has been selling very well here as well," said Sung. Xiaomi’s Mi TV remain an awaited device in India, but so far the company has not confirmed if and when it will bring them to this market.
He also promised the Redmi Note 4 will have a better supply than the previous Redmi Note 3 smartphone. "We’ve been in India for two years and are increasing our local manufacturing processes rapidly. We are confident the supply for Redmi Note 4 will be much more than the Redmi Note 3, and there will be many more of these phones," he said.
Xiaomi is confident the Redmi Note 4 will outdo the Redmi Note 3 in sales; the latter was the best-selling smartphone in the online space in India and helped the company bounce up to number three in the list of smartphone vendors in India.
Also read: Redmi Note 4 launched in India: Price, specifications and features
Talking about the Redmi Note 4, Sung pointed out the phone marks a significant upgrade over the previous version. "One of the important things is that we’ve moved to the next generation of processing technology, with 14nm. Previously Qualcomm’s high-end Snapdragon 820, 821 were using this technology. So essentially all of the transistors have shrunk in half, you can have many more transistors into the same area, and it’s also more power efficient because the power that is used per transistor is much less," he pointed out.
Xiaomi also confirmed the Redmi Note 4 will be made available to other platforms eventually, although initially it will be a Flipkart and Mi.com exclusive. Xiaomi plans to launch the phone on Amazon, Paytm, and other online portals and will target offline in a big way for 2017. "It is a big play for us, we are already working with a lot of distributors in India and will have more to announce soon," he said. This is also the first time Xiaomi is selling the a 4GB RAM version of the Redmi phone in India.
"We will be carefully looking at what products will make sense across the Indian market. India is the most important global market for Xiaomi outside of China; Redmi Note 4 with Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor made its global debut in India and not in China, not in Indonesia. That shows a little bit about how we want to emphasise the Indian market," said Sung, adding that their products in India are geared towards the youth.
© The Indian Express Online Media Pvt Ltd.
No comments:
Post a Comment