Xiaomi eyes to increase offline share to 50% of sales: Founder Lei Jun

NEW DELHI: Online and offline markets will contribute nearly equal shares to Xiaomi's sales in China in a couple of years, a balance that the company may achieve in India overtime, founder and CEO Lei Jun told ET, adding that the short term goal in India would be to grab about 50% share of the burgeoning online market.

In an exclusive interview with ET, Jun, who is the 12th richest in China with a net worth of $6.8 billion, as per Forbes, said that the company will expand manufacturing in India to resolve issues around shortage of supply in the face of high local demand. The company may even look at exports from India.

"It's a possibility, we're still running out of stock of India," Jun, 47, said. "First fulfil Indian consumer needs before looking at exporting," he added.

Xiaomi has sold more than 4 million devices over last year. In March 2017, the company sold 250,000 units of the Redmi 4A priced at Rs 5,999, on Amazon.com within four minutes while getting over 1 million customers that have pre-booked the device.

"Even with the new (second) plant, still short in supply," Jun added, highlighting that the company would be keen to set up a third plant in India as well, thereby expanding capacity.

The company which started making phones locally with Foxconn in Andhra Pradesh in 2015, recently expanded its capacity to make one phone per second, and now locally makes 95% of the phones it sells in India.

India is the biggest market for Xiaomi outside China. According to analyst firm IDC, Xiaomi India has become the number one selling smartphone brand in the online market, with 29.3%.

Jun added that the company is keen to bring more of it s ecosystem products to India, and is equally keen to invest in start-ups in India on his own - through his and through Shunwei Capital - and through Xiaomi India.

Xiaomi shot to the No 1 smartphone manufacturer in China and No 3 in the world in 2014, the same year it became the most-valued tech startup in the world at more than US$45 billion valuation. While the company was ranked as one of the Top 50 innovative brands by BCG in 2016, in India it grabbed the No 2 position in smartphone segment as of December, with 10.7% market share.

Source: Xiaomi eyes to increase offline share to 50% of sales: Founder Lei Jun