In what can only be described as a crushing blow to Xiaomi fans in India, the Chinese smartphone vendor has reportedly told BGR that it does not intend to sell its recently-launched blockbuster mid-range phablet Redmi Note 2 in what the company calls its second home – India. According to the report carried by BGR, a Xiaomi spokesperson had this to say when contacted by them: “We are continuously evaluating new products that can be launched in India. But, as of now we do not have plans to launch Redmi Note 2 in India”. The spokesperson however did not give any specific reason for the decision. Recent reports have indicated that the Redmi Note 2 is already a much-in-demand smartphone in China, with Xiaomi having revealed that the company has sold as many as 800,000 of these devices within 12 hours of launch, which is an astonishing number whichever way one looks at it.
Android Headlines had already reported that the MediaTek Helio X10-powered Redmi Note 2 that was launched in China last week, was unlikely to ever see the light of day in India because of ongoing legal disputes with Ericsson that prevent the Chinese phone-maker from selling MediaTek and Leadcore-powered devices in the third largest smartphone market in the world. Online speculations, however, seemed to suggest that the company had an ace up its sleeve in the form of a Snapdragon 615-powered version of the smartphone, which it was supposed to launch in the country on August 19th, alongside the reveal of the global MIUI 7 ROM in the national capital of New Delhi. If however, the latest report is anything to go by, the Redmi Note 2 will probably not be reaching Indian shores anytime soon.
As for Xiaomi’s legal troubles in India, the company was originally barred from selling any smartphone in the country, along the lines of bans already in place on the company’s smartphones in countries like the US. The Delhi High court however, eventually passed an injunction allowing the company to do business in India, but only with products that use American chipmaker Qualcomm’s processors rather than Chinese chipmaker MediaTek’s, or Xiaomi’s own Leadcore chips for that matter.