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Xiaomi is expanding its offline store presence to rural cities in India. The company’s India head Manu Kumar Jain, announced the launch of Mi Stores for rural India. These also include tier 4, tier 5 towns in India. The company says it has opened 500 of these stores, across India on October 29.
“Very often in these towns or villages, one store is selling phones and other products. There is no dedicated store from most smartphone brands. The entire range is never present. We have tried to understand how the needs of a rural customer are different from urban ones,” explained Jain.
With its Mi Stores in rural areas, Xiaomi will offer its full range of products, while trying to keep the prices low. The company claims it will try and offer a similar experience to Mi Home stores in metros.
The stores will only keep Xiaomi products. Mi Stores in rural areas will have a dedicated TV wall in these stores to showcase Mi LED TVs. Other products like Xiaomi’s accessories, Mi Suitcase, backpacks will also be sold in these stores. The company is also looking for those who are interested to come and open Mi Stores. They can fill up an application for this on the company’s website.
Xiaomi is hoping to capitalise on its Mi fanbase in order to expand its presence in offline retail in these areas. The company is the number one player in India’s online market when it comes to smartphones, with close to 50 per cent market share, according to numbers shared by research firm by IDC. The company claims it has seen 40x increase in offline market share. According to Gfk, Xiaomi’s market share in offline was 20.6 per cent in the third quarter of 2018.
Xiaomi has been expanding offline presence in India and has a total of 50 Mi Home stores, which are present in metros, tier one, tier two cities. Five of these are flagship stores which have products from Xiaomi that have not yet launched in India like scooters, washing machines, and others. The company also has 4000+ Mi Preferred partner stores in over 50+ cities.
