Friday, July 7, 2017

Xiaomi hails ‘return to rapid growth’ as it targets 100m phone sales in 2017

Xiaomi phone

Photo credit: Xiaomi.

Xiaomi had a terrible 2016 as Chinese consumers turned their backs on the budget phone brand. That led to it falling from first to fifth in the cut-throat China smartphone market. Only India seemed to still be in love with the upstart phone maker.

But 2017 might be different. Xiaomi today hailed record phone sales in the April-June quarter, hitting 23.2 million. Xiaomi spokesperson Donovan Sung said on Twitter that the figure was “marking our return to rapid growth” after a horrible year.

Although India is a fast-growing smartphone market, it’s multiple times smaller than China in terms of annual sales, meaning that growth in India is usually not enough to offset a company’s abysmal China performance. But Sung today hailed 328 percent growth in India revenue from January to June, indicating that India might – this time – be able to save Xiaomi all by itself.

Xiaomi was India’s second biggest smartphone seller in 2016, just behind Samsung.

For the first time, Chinese smartphone brands dominate India - CHART

In order to get closer to India’s consumers, Xiaomi has opened its own stores and service centers in the nation, and this month doubled down with its second local phone factory, playing up to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s desire to see more things manufactured in India.

“We expect to create a total of 20,000 jobs in three years,” said founder and CEO Lei Jun, this week talking of the India market at an event in New Delhi.

This post Xiaomi hails ‘return to rapid growth’ as it targets 100m phone sales in 2017 appeared first on Tech in Asia.



from Tech in Asia https://www.techinasia.com/xiaomi-targets-100-million-phone-sales-2017
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