Xiaomi, a Chinese handset player which entered Indian handset market last year, till date had been selling its smartphones in India through an online ecommerce portal only. But, not it has taken a baby step to sell their products through physical stores.
The company is a move to shed “online and flash sale” tag has entered into a partnership with The Mobile Store to sell select Mi smartphones and tablet through their 55 stores in Delhi NCR.
In China, Xiaomi sells its product via its own online store and physical store of service providers. But in India this is for the second time the company has taken the offline route. First time it partnered with Airtel to sell RedMi Note 4 G through their select stores
With the change in its distribution strategy, Xiaomi looks to expand its presence in the country.
Few months back Hugo Barra, vice president, Xiaomi Global had said to The Mobile Indian, “we are not averse to selling our product through physical stores in India and will wait for the right to time to commence it.” We guess that Xiaomi believes that this the right time to sell products via physical stores and increase their footprints and the partnership with Airtel for selling Redmi 4G was just to check the waters before the next step.