In the case of Xiaomi, the Chinese giant who entered into India two years ago, they had a huge fan following. And surprisingly, this they did not know in the initial month. When they entered India, they were a small brand, who they thought were not known enough. However, to their surprise, Xiaomi was a huge hit when they announced their presence in India and started with their first handset, the flagship Mi 3. The crowd applauded and fans were madly opting for the new handset that was insanely affordable and yet powerful, as compared to its rivals. This was the period when they partnered with Flipkart for their online sales, who, together with Xiaomi started the new process of selling the device with their flash sale methodology.
While registration and flash sales worked in favour of both companies, this later became a pain for the fans, who registered in numbers amounting to millions, but sadly, only a few thousand handsets were being stocked and sold. While Xiaomi mentioned that there were unaware of their popularity in the country and did not estimate the proportion of sales. This led them to manufacture more handsets just to meet the requirements in India alone.
Later they went ahead to launch new handsets in the country, which again went in their favour, and Xiaomi managed to get a huge chunk of the smartphone market pie. As their popularity grew, Xiaomi started promoting their brand by heavily using the social platform. Xiaomi does not believe in advertising and prefers making lower profits rather than suffering huge losses. Instead of making profits, they would prefer to pass that on to the customer by lowering the handset prices.
Later, with the release of new handsets, the flash sales became their only way of selling their handsets. However, with shortage of stocks and most people unable to buy handsets, this started taking a toll on their fan following. Fans registered in huge numbers, but only to see the ‘buy now’ button for less than a second. This was, and is the same scene till date. The last two devices launched were the Redmi Note 3 and the Xiaomi Mi 5. While the Mi 5 was announced with only 32GB storage, the Redmi was announced with two variants, 16GB and 32GB. Xiaomi says that they are short in stock for the 32GB version and are only selling the 16GB version, that too in flash sales that are weekly and last just a few seconds. Customers who are opting for the Redmi Note 3 prefer the 32GB over the 16GB version as it holds more value for money with just a difference of Rs 2,000. However, the Redmi Note 3 32GB variant is nowhere to be seen. Unfortunately, the company is also not transparent enough to give out the actual figures of the available devices before the sale. The flagship Xiaomi Mi 5 is also facing the same issues with availability. People have responded that it is better to buy another brand rather than stand in line and lose patience over the flash sales.
Xiaomi’s relationship with its fans has started turning sour by the day. Every post on Facebook by Xiaomi has attracted more negativity than praises. Posts by Hugo Barra, VP Global for Xiaomi, has attracted a lot of bad comments from his followers in India.
A recent post, where Hugo posted a photo of the earth captured from outer space by a Xiaomi Mi 5 smartphone. There is absolutely no information about who shot it, when and how. Though there were a surprising 2,000 plus likes to the post, there were a lot of negative comments too, and some were hilarious. Angry fans and customers are trolling every Facebook post by Xiaomi to get their questions answered.
Here are a few comments that grabbed our attention. Check out some of the screenshots below:
In the line of comments itself, an angry fan had posted his comment with a screenshot asking Xiaomi for an explanation. The guy, named Neel Thakur, asked Hugo to justify himself and Xiaomi about the Mi 5 contest that was held earlier. The contest mentioned that one Mi 5 and 5 F-Codes would be given out to the lucky winners, provided they share the post and comment why the Mi 5 impresses them. However, Thakur highlights that the contest was simply made for promotional basis and create a huge publicity, which was later taken down without notice. He also claims that the contest winners were not even announced. Check out the post below:
In under two years, Xiaomi has grown to be one of the top smartphone brands in India. It presently occupies the slot of the top five smartphone manufacturers in the world, rubbing shoulders with top well-known, seasoned brands Samsung, Apple, Huawei, LG and others. India is the second largest consumer of smartphones and the 5-year-old Chinese startup has managed to capture the market in a very short span.
However, sadly, Xiaomi seems to have disappointed fans out here—either knowingly or unknowingly. Their flash sales strategy seems to be pushing the customers’ patience to their limits, and in the bargain the brand may suffer, though slowly, in the Indian market. Xiaomi fans are slowly turning away, and the main reason is their flash sales and low stocks. Though their smartphones are impressive, surprisingly low costs and powerful hardware, Xiaomi could suffer because of various other reasons in India.
What do you think? Do you like the flash sales? Will Xiaomi lose ground in India? What do you propose Xiaomi should do? Would you prefer another brand over Xiaomi?
