E-commerce portal Flipkart slowed down today after online shoppers logged on the site to check out Xiaomi's Mi 3 smartphone that went out of stock within first 30 minutes of sale at the homegrown online marketplace.
Known as the 'Apple' of China, Xiaomi has entered the Indian market with an exclusive sales tie-up with Flipkart for Mi 3. The Chinese handset maker has priced Mi 3 at Rs 13,999.
Declining to comment on the number of units sold, a Flipkart spokesperson said: "We sold out within the first 30 minutes. We will be getting the phone back in stock next week."
Flipkart said it received about 1,00,000 registrations for the Mi3 between July 15 and July 21.
The Bangalore-based e-commerce firm said it had anticipated a huge response from online shoppers after looking at the registration numbers.
"Based on the phenomenal response we saw during the registration phase, we had anticipated a traffic spike and had scaled up our web services accordingly. But the number of customers who logged in immediately after the phone went live on our site caused the process to slow down for a while," the spokesperson said.
Flipkart is expanding its capacity in order to provide a smoother shopping experience, she added.
Indian smartphone market is witnessing strong competition between local and international players, all vying to grab a share of the multi-billion dollar market.
Commenting on the response to Xiaomi's Mi 3, Flipkart's VP Retail and Head of Brand Alliances Michael Adnani said: "We were confident of the success of Mi3 in India. It has done extremely well internationally. We are working with Xiaomi to ensure that the purchase experience lives up to our Flipkart promise of excellence.
