NEW DELHI: Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi said that it will open 100 stores in India for the purpose of helping its consumers through “experience” the company’s devices, but will not sell them at these stores.
The company is going to further increase its investment in the country and is going to start local production of its devices in India within the next 12 to 18 months. Xiaomi first entered the Indian market in July last year. In five months only it was able to sell more than one million handsets.
Xiaomi, whose low-priced but feature-rich smartphones have made it the biggest smartphone vendor in China, entered India in July and sells its phones primarily through flash sales on online retailer Flipkart.com.
The ‘service and experience stores’ would be set up over 500 to 1,000 square feet and will launch in cities including Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore in the first week of April, Manu Jain, Xiaomi’s India head, told reporters in New Delhi at the launch of the company’s latest budget smartphone.
Though the company started selling its Redmi Note 4G handsets through outlets of the country’s top carrier Bharti Airtel in January, it is not in “active discussions with any other offline partner,” Jain said.
