Xiaomi has emerged as one of the fastest-growing smartphone manufacturers in the world in a relatively short amount of time. The company’s strategy of offering aggressively-priced devices with robust specs has paid dividends. It’s now looking to go after Samsung even aggressively by expanding its retail presence in a key market. The company has largely been focused on driving sales through online channels but it’s clearly shifting gears now.
Xiaomi aims to grab the lead in the Indian smartphone market which has long been dominated by Samsung. It’s going to try to do that by expanding its store network in the country.
It’s impressive how the company has come close to a striking distance of Samsung in India just a little over three years after it entered the market for the very first time.
“If you look at 2017 and 2018 combined, the biggest change in our strategy is our focus on offline,” said Manu Kumar Jain, Managing Director of Xiaomi India. The company opened its first retail store in the country back in May and has expanded its retail presence to 17 locations across the country.
Jain says that Xiaomi is ahead of schedule on its plans to open 100 Mi Home stores by mid-2018. It’s going to further expand its network with more preferred partner stores, these are multi-brand outlets that largely stock Xiaomi products.
Whether or not that’s going to be enough to overtake the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer in this highly lucrative market remains to be seen.