Calm after the storm? Xiaomi Mi 3 reportedly discontinued in India as Mi 4 launch looms

Looks like Xiaomi is training all its attention on the upcoming Redmi 1S as reports around the web suggest that the company will stop selling the Mi 3 indefinitely.

A report on tech blog TechPP quotes the company’s India head Manu Jain as saying, “Over next few weeks, we will focus on Redmi 1S, and Mi 3 wont be available. We will take the final call after few weeks, once we have more visibility / data points.”

This could be seen as a surprising turn of events in the light of the weekly flash sales none of which lasted beyond 40 minutes, while a majority of them ended in mere seconds. So what does Xiaomi hope to do by not selling the Mi 3? There could very well be an increased focus on the Redmi devices as well as preparations for the Mi 4 launch, which will launch sometime after Diwali in India. The Redmi 1S goes on sale next week and is looking dead-on to be a sleeper hit, with its unprecedented price to specs ratio. The Redmi Note is to follow soon after, while the company also has plans for the MiPad and Mi Band fitness accessory.

But does it make sense to withdraw the Mi 3 altogether? It’s a gamble for sure, considering that while earlier there would be two Xiaomi handsets, now there’s just one. For those who find the Redmi 1S slightly underpowered, the Mi 3 will no longer be available.

This could also be a calculated move on Xiaomi’s part to bring production of the Mi 3 up to speed to the demand in India. For all we know the Mi 3 might be back in a couple of weeks on Flipkart with a sizeable number of units on sale. Another reason could be that the Mi 3 would have cannibalised the Redmi 1S to a certain extent, though given the price chasm between the two, this seems unlikely. What we do know is that come Tuesday there will no longer be a rush on Flipkart for the Mi 3. However, in all likelihood, the Redmi 1S will draw a lot more people to the site.

Xiaomi Mi 4 to be launched post-Diwali this year, says India head

Xiaomi, often referred as the “Apple of China”, plans to launch its flagship Mi 4 phone by the year’s end in India and also plans to set up its Mi Home experience zone in Bangalore within four to six months, the company’s India head said.

“The next few things that we will be launching are Mi 4, our flagship product; Mi pad, which is a tablet and Mi Band, a health band. Mi 4 will come to India towards the end of the year, post-Diwali in all likelihood,” Manu Kumar Jain, Xiaomi’s India head of operations, told IANS in an interview.

The company’s second product, Redmi 1S, was launched Tuesday, with registrations continuing till Sep 2. Redmi 1S will retail in India at Rs. 5,999. The company has entered into exclusive partnership with e-commerce site Flipkart to sell all its products. “Redmi Note, which is the elder brother of Redmi 1S, with a 5.5 inch panel, will hit the market around three-four weeks from now,” said Jain, the co-founder of e-commerce portal Jabong and who earlier worked with McKinsey & Company.

The company launched its first product, Mi3 on July 22 “and we have sold around 95,000 units till now,” Jain said. The company opens flash sell once a week for the phone, which costs Rs. 13,999. Xiaomi has also set up 35 service centres across India, including two exclusive Mi service centres in Delhi and Bangalore, to ensure after-sale services for its customers. “We want to expand service centres to six. They will be in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Gurgaon.”

Saying that Xiaomi does not believe in number targets, Jain said the focus was on the right inputs: “The best service centres, the best products and ensuring that products do not have issues. We ensure the software is great and customised for Indian customers and the pricing is right. If the inputs are right, output will follow, which is the number of phones that we are selling.”

As for the experience zone in India, Jain said: “We plan to have a Mi Home in Bangalore within four to six months.”

“Mi Homes are there in China. The experience zones have a huge area. We convert it into a Mi store. Products are displayed with a huge amount of accessories and this also acts as a service centre. A small lounge or cafeteria is attached where people can enjoy themselves,” Jain explained.

Talking about alternative channels of sales, Jain said: “We might start selling through our own website mi.com. We will continue to sell through Flipkart. No timeline has been set so far. Setting up e-commerce operations from scratch takes time in India. In many countries, like in Singapore, we sell through mi.com.”

The Indian site is so far used for marketing alone and no purchases can be made from there. As for target customers, Jain said: “Our target audience is the youth and the tech savvy. We believe that this population will grow, will be the dominant and people will buy online. Our products are comparable to any other Rs. 30,000 – 40,000 device available in the market.”

Xiaomi sold 26.1 million devices in China in the first half of 2014.

After Mi 3 madness, Xiaomi’s hype machine will now focus on Redmi 1s

Xiaomi will officially unveil the India launch details for the Redmi 1s tomorrow and we will find out when the smartphone will be available and the sales process. Hopefully, this time around Xiaomi has a better handle on how the Indian market works and the demand for its phones. So we can expect a bigger launch than the Mi 3.

While the availability date is still unknown, arguably the most important details are out in the open. We know the Xiaomi Redmi 1s will be priced at Rs 6,999, which makes it great value already. But the specifications are unheard of in this price range. The Redmi 1S sports a Nexus 4-like 4.7-inch 720p IPS display. It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor like the Moto G, but the clock speed is higher at 1.6GHz, and there’s a healthy 1GB of RAM. 16GB onboard storage is present and there’s a microSD card slot as well for expansion up to 64GB. The 2000mAh battery sounds great and there are decent-sounding cameras on board as well – an 8MP rear shooter and a 1.6MP front camera.

Just like the Xiaomi Mi 3 which offered incredible specs making its direct competitors irrelevant, the Redmi 1S aims to destroy the competition, none of which can offer similar or specs close to it. In addition, the Redmi phone looks a notch above the competition in terms of design as well.

The entry-level segment threshold has been pushed lower and lower in the past few months with the invasion of the budget Android KitKat phones. So it’s not like Xiaomi won’t have any competition at all. But what the Redmi 1s does is make these feel significantly below par. For one, none of them can offer a similar HD display. Even the Moto E, which had a brilliant qHD display, pales in comparison. The storage is also pretty much the best you can get and the processing power is ample.

Moreover MIUI brings true software differentiation which no other brand can match in this segment. So the advantages are obvious and the lower price point will catch a lot more buyers in the dragnet.

In the Mi 3 review, we’d said that there’s literally no competition for the first Xiaomi phone in India, but the Redmi 1s seems like a better deal. It offers better value given its specs, at nearly half the Mi 3’s price. And it’s shaping up to be a massive success, likely to sell out in mere seconds each time it goes on sale, just as the Mi 3 has done.

Xiaomi has faced a lot of criticism for the way it’s handled the Mi 3 launch, despite the apparent craze for the phone. Even though they are officially here, the Indian market has posed some problems for the company. To repair that image of being all talk and no show, it has to meet the expected demand in a timely manner when it comes to the Redmi 1s. Here the margin for error is smaller as there are hundreds of alternatives. It’s up to Xiaomi to make sure there are enough phones to sell, and they could well and truly arrive in India.