Xiaomi the leading smartphone brand in India and Globally now had started its company offering great devices at affordable price points. Xiaomi entered into Indian market sometime in mid-2014 with Mi 3 which was their first flagship for India under 15K segment.
That phone went like crazy with huge sale numbers and lack of units the brand struggled to fulfil the demands in India. Due to which we saw many buyers being tricked to buy the device through OLX.in at premium prices. Yes, many users were sort of buying the Mi 3 at their flash sale and reselling bit higher prices on the OLX website in India.
This is still going on with the latest Redmi Note 10 series to selling like hot cakes in India but lack of units buyers are forced to wait. So what has really changed in the company? Still, the brand has a serious Supply chain issue that is going on even after almost 8 long years of Indian presence.
Xiaomi scared to launch premium devices in India:
We even saw Xiaomi being sceptical in launching their premium flagships in India. The reason is simple India is probably prices conscious market for any brand. Many Indians hardly spend that much on any Chinese flagship ever. So is this myth still applicable in 2021? The answer is both Yes & No.
So How is it yes? Xiaomi started re-entering into the premium flagship market with sub-30K devices right from Mi 10 series i.e last year. Yes, Xiaomi took the risk and launched just the base variant of Mi 10 in India at a whopping price tag of 50K which didn’t go well with the Indian audience. By the second half of 2020 Xiaomi introduce something called affordable flagship with Mi 10T series at 30K segment which was sold quite a few numbers but not that huge figures probably due to LCD display on 35K phone.
Still, we have the latest entrants on the list with the Mi 11X series that was pretty surprising after the debacle of the Mi 10T series. Yes, Xiaomi again took a huge risk and launched cheaper and better flagships with Mi 11X series in India. These flagships were priced aggressively under the 30K to 40K segment in India. But still failed to achieve the sale targets according to me even after huge sales figure the series did perform better when compared with Mi 10T series.
But still, Xiaomi is giving huge discounts in terms of exchange offers to lure consumers of better performing devices at affordable prices. This is enough to confirm that the brand has still not achieved its feat to the premium segment market in India. Finally, the brand also bought the ultra-premium flagship with Mi 11 Ultra to Indian shores which were also delayed due to supply chain issues. It too failed miserably even after been priced almost similar to Chinese pricing in India.
What needs to be done?
In short, I can confirm that Xiaomi has still not managed to get into the hearts of people who like to have a premium smartphone in India. So what does Xiaomi needs to do to get their share into the premium segment? They have to offer a better device without any crappy MIUI software which is the major setback for those shelling huge amounts on a premium flagship. None will expect their phone to look crappy if they are spending that premium price. So stop loading bloatware and MIUI instead of got with cleaner stock Android so that people might take risks and buy one.
Further, Xiaomi also needs to focus on providing regular Android updates like Samsung so that people think to invest in their premium flagship. As we still see that MIUI loaded Mi 10T series recently received the Android 11 OS update.
Lastly, Xiaomi also needs to solve their supply chain issues which are happening every here and then that might indirectly affect your loyal users.
Lots of re-branded devices make consumers go crazy:
Recently we saw a new trend been followed especially by Chinese brands like Xiaomi and BBK group. Yes, re-branding the one phone with different names & brands. So just in the name of upgrade now Xiaomi is targetting consumers with its new smartphones having same specs just slight improvement over the other. No major changes at all but also launching the similar device at various price ranges under different brands like Redmi, POCO what not.
Is this really required? The answer is Hell No!! why do we need the same specs with other brands and compete within the same company just to grow up and make huge sale records? Why are you launching the smartphones here and then just to confuse the consumer which has hardly got any major upgrades at all.
So please stop re-branding unnecessarily the same phone into multiple brands or models which is not good for a healthy run at all. This might even force consumers to leave the brand due to a lack of software/security updates.
MIUI is just getting crappy day by day:
Another problem with Xiaomi is their custom so-called skin MIUI. Yes, the brand initially was just a software company that was ripping the iPhone UI to make look similar to MIUI. As I had started flashing the custom ROM of MIUI build early 2013 on my HTC phones which were running so smooth even with low RAM and storage.
Now the crappy UI is just nothing but sort of bloatware with annoying ads. Not just that every new update will slower the phone performance and instead of improving it goes to worst. Yes, the latest example is the POCO X2 whose camera stopped working after the latest MIUI 12 update which is seriously annoying.
Not just that the MIUI is just having tons of bugs and looks like half-baked products have been sold to consumers at affordable prices. So at the end consumer must opt for custom ROM which is not that safe as many of the payment apps will not function properly. I guess Xiaomi needs to take a big step and pull down the MIUI from India instead charge a slight premium and provide bug-free stock Android UI.
Increasing the Product price now and then:
Yes, here we have new trend set by Xiaomi of increasing the prices marginally of popular selling devices. This is not at all done Xiaomi just because you launch the product initially for cheaper price and then give blame to Govt or some other reasons to bump up the prices by Rs.500 every odd month !! This is happening too frequently with the popular phones like Redmi Note 10 series and also some Poco product like Poco M3.
With this move you are cutting your own popularity as many of the buyers will find some better devices at the that price. So they will just ditch your phone for something better. Please decide the price twice and launch just because you looking at competition and launching it initially and then increasing it as it gets popular isn’t good in long run.
Wrapping up this article as there is still a lot to cover which can’t be posted on a single post. If you like the article do share the post and also comment down your thoughts.
