Xiaomi eyes offline stores to boost sales, says Jain

Hyderabad: Chinese electronics major Xiaomi, whose smartphones rule the Indian online sales, is now planning to focus more on offline stores in India to further boost its smartphone sales in India.

Speaking to this newspaper, Xiaomi global VP Manu Jain said, “In India, 65 per cent of smartphone sales still occur offline. We already have a market share of 50 per cent in online sales, so we are looking to increase our offline presence to help grow our sales further.”

The company, which currently operates 13 Mi Homes across top six cities, plans to increase the count to 100 by December 2018.

He added, “There is a huge demand for Xiaomi phone in offline stores. Shopkeepers tell us every day atleast 10 customers walk in to their shops asking for our phones.”

When asked about plans for any new units to cater to the huge demand, he said, “We are definitely exploring. We want to add more capacity. We want to set up more plants, not just for phones, even for other categories like Mi-band. There are many other categories...,” he said.

However, Mr Jain said, “Our revenues for 2016 calendar year was about Rs 7,000 crore. The company had aimed to double its revenue for 2017 to Rs 14,000 crore. We hope to have to touched higher but we can only confirm it after the closing our books.”

Mr Jain also allayed fears over the security of the Xiaomi phones.