And you thought iPhones were popular. At 2 p.m. on Oct. 14, Xiaomi put 100,000 of its Redmi 1S smartphones up for sale in India, using local e-commerce site Flipkart to sell them, unsubsidized, for 5,999 rupees ($98) apiece. Within four seconds the phones sold out. Such Flipkart flash sales have become weekly events since China’s Xiaomi entered India in July. “It’s the most important market for us after China,” says Hugo Barra, the Google (GOOG) alumnus now in charge of Xiaomi’s international expansion. Indians “are without a doubt the most demanding users that we have encountered.”
Consumers in India bought 44 million smartphones last year, close to 200 percent more than they did the year before. Four-year-old Xiaomi, which sells the most popular smartphones in China, has made 2014’s splashiest entrance into India’s phone market. Other companies have also sought to gain market share, especially in the peak holiday shopping season leading up to the nationwide Diwali festival on Oct. 23. Huawei (002502:CH) began selling its Honor Holly smartphone on Flipkart for $115 on Oct. 16. Motorola, which Lenovo (992:HK) has agreed to buy from Google, had 5 percent of the market in the second quarter, up from almost nothing a year ago, thanks to sales of its Moto G ($164 on Flipkart). Models from Chinese phone makers Gionee and Oppo start at $86 and $130, respectively.
via Samsung’s China Smartphone Problems Come to India – Businessweek.
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