Xiaomi had introduced two Redmi Note 5 smartphones in India recently, along with a 55-inch Mi TV 4 variant, which is something we’ve talked about already, but some new info has just surfaced. It seems like Xiaomi India’s Managing Director, and Vice President of Xiaomi Global, Manu Kumar Jain, confirmed after the event, that Xiaomi is not planning to increase price points of its smartphones, despite low margins.
Some rumors have been claiming that Xiaomi may increase price points of its smartphones in India, due to increased import duties on components, but that will not happen, it seems. Manu Kumar Jain clearly said that the company will continue selling low-priced smartphones in the country, and that increased component import duties will not affect the company’s pricing structure. Now, in addition to that. Mr. Jain explained that Xiaomi is working on a strategy which will make sure that increased import duty on components does not impact the company. Now, the Indian government did increased import duties for components, as it wants to push its ‘Make in India’ initiative, which gives a number of incentives to companies which manufacture their products in the country, no matter if we’re talking about components, smartphones, or whatever else. In addition to all this, Manu Kumar Jain also said that Xiaomi may manufacture its Mi TV units in India, in the near future, as he hinted that Xiaomi may partner up with TCL or may work with its existing partners in India, but it’s quite possible that the company will start manufacturing Mi TVs in the country.
Now, as far as Xiaomi’s smartphones are concerned, Foxconn India is manufacturing smartphones for Xiaomi, as the company manufactures 95 percent of the company’s smartphones which are sold in India. Xiaomi had embraced the ‘Make in India’ initiative a while back, which enables the company to sell its smartphones at low costs in the country. Xiaomi actually managed to grow quite a bit in India over the last year or so, and this China-based company even managed to trump Samsung, and become India’s number one smartphone OEM, well, at least according to some market research companies, as Samsung is still denying that fact. In any case, it will be interesting to see what will happen in 2018.