Xiaomi’s Mi3 magic in India now?

Launched less than a fortnight ago in India, China-based Xiaomi’s Mi 3 smartphones again ran out of stock today in five seconds on e-commerce website Flipkart.

The e-commerce website claims that after today’s sale, the total number of Mi 3 devices sold on Flipkart to date is 20,000. Last week, the entire Mi 3 stock was sold out in 38 minutes and 50 seconds on the site. So, is this an indication that Xiaomi’s phones are gaining momentum in India too?

The phone has been a success in China due to its Android-based platform called MIUI (Mobile Internet User Interface), which is a live operating system constantly improving with frequent software updates.

According to analysts, Xiaomi’s Mi3, which is priced at Rs 13,999, is the first handset in India offering specifications of high-end phones at less than half the price of its global peers. It has created a technological niche which remains the main attraction.

MIUI is Xiaomi’s custom user interface that runs on all its phones. It brings in customization of certain features which enhances the overall experience of the smartphone users. Some of them are personalized themes, numerous locksreens, etc.

The MIUI platform has been the major reason behind the Chinese country's huge success in its native country.

“The site saw an unprecedented 250,000 users simultaneously accessing the Mi 3 page shortly after the sale opened at 2pm today. This traffic load was four times higher than the heaviest level ever experienced by Flipkart’s infrastructure. At 2 pm sharp, when the countdown timer on the Mi 3 page hit 00:00:00, users were able to instantly add the product to their shopping carts and were then taken to the payment and checkout pages,” a statement said.

Though Xiamio’s Mi3 phones have received a very good response from the Indian market so far, but analysts believe Xiaomi may not grab a significant share from the global brands in the beginning owing to brand loyalty, but will definitely grab share from local and Chinese smartphone players which itself will amount to huge numbers to start with in a market like India.

“Since Xiaomi works on a razor-thin margin, it will be interesting to watch how it prices its offerings when it adopts the traditional distribution route in India,” says one telecom analyst Tarun Pathak.

Commenting on the sales from Xiaomi’s headquarters in Bangalore, Hugo Barra, vice-president, Xiaomi Global, said, “We are completely overwhelmed by the demand for Mi 3 by our fans here in India and are working diligently with our manufacturing partners as well as our local partners and the user community here in India to bring more devices and deliver the best possible product experience with Mi 3 and other models to come.”

Flipkart co-founder & CEO Sachin Bansal said, "The Mi sales model is a new concept for us at Flipkart and the Indian customers in general. We learned a lot during last week’s first sale and, after directing our entire team to work on improving the customer experience over the last week, we have made significant progress. The site held up extremely well today and no major issues have been reported. We are working towards an even more seamless experience for our customers in the future."