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“Our biggest priority is to bring multiple categories such as smart Internet-connected devices to the domestic market. While Xiaomi Mi Band, a wearable fitness tracker, is already available in India, we are in the process of launching Xiaomi Mi Box, a tiny box that turns an ordinary TV into a smart TV, by December, followed by Xiaomi smart TV in 2016,” Xiaomi India head Manu Kumar Jain told Business Standard on the sidelines of a press meet here on Friday.
Xiaomi, which had raised $1.1 billion in December 2014, valuing the company at $45 billion, has already started selling non-phone products such as headphones, power banks, Wi-Fi routers and fitness trackers in the US and European markets since May this year.
According to Jain, Xiaomi had sold about a million smartphones within the first four months of its entry into the Indian market in July 2014, becoming the fifth-largest player in the domestic market with a share of four per cent. The five-year-old company, which rolled out its first smartphone in August 2011, had sold 61.1 million units globally last year, against 18.7 million units in 2013. Listing out Xiaomi’s priorities to stay closer to its Indian customers, Jian said the company was working towards strengthening its own e-commerce platform – mi.com – even as it would continue to work with its online partners Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon. It may be recalled that Xiaomi had built a new technology platform with Flipkart to accelerate its flash sales system.
“We have already set up a 25,000-sq ft research and development centre in Bengaluru. Though it currently employs only four professionals, the centre will have a 100-member team towards the end of this year, which will design new mobile technology features for our Indian consumers,” Jain said.
On Xiaomi's plans to begin local manufacturing, he said the company was evaluating various options to stay closer to its customers. “Work is in progress. It (local manufacturing) will materialise this year,” he added.
Replying to a query on Foxconn, one of Xiaomi’s top two suppliers, planning to manufacture 10,000 smartphones per day for Xiaomi at its leased facility in Sri City in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, Jain neither confirmed nor denied the development. “We will be happy if they (Foxconn) are doing it.”
| INDIA JOURNEY |
2014
Source: Xiaomi, Agencies |
Xiaomi looks to fund Indian start-ups
Xiaomi, the world’s third-largest smartphone maker, was aggressively looking to park investments into Indian start-ups, especially in the areas of internet technology and connected devices, said its India head Manu Kumar Jain.
The company, having invested in 20 start-ups in China, is one of the top angel investors in its home country. Xiaomi founder Lei Jun had in February this year secured $160 million for his China-focused venture capital fund Shunwei China Internet Fund, to invest in more Chinese start-ups. Founded in 2011, the Shunwei China Internet Fund has over $900 million in assets under management. “We are looking at investments in India. This includes a few technology companies working on mobile internet and connected devices,” Jain told mediapersons in Hyderabad on Friday.
“From the hardware perspective, we do not see many start-ups. However, we are on the lookout for software start-up companies that could bring synergies to our operations,” he added.
