Very soon you could buy your next Mi smartphone, Mi TV or other Mi accessories from a flagship Mi Store near your neighbourhood. Xiaomi India in its push to reach the next billion customers has announced plan to open 5000 Mi Stores by end of 2019 across India, more specifically across rural India.
In fact, Xaiomi India has already opened 500+ new Mi Store across India simultaneously. Thus have also set a new Guinness World Record for “the most stores launched simultaneously at multiple venues across India“. This flagship Mi Stores are launched in Tier 2 and Tier 3 Indian cities.
“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 Manu Kumar Jain, Xiaomi’s India Head.
New Retail model
The New Retail model as being called by Xiaomi India focus on rural India. The company would open its Mi Store outlets across rural India to offer flagship store experience to their rural customers. These outlets would be targeted for customers in Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4 and Tier 5 towns in India.
The company claims its Mi Store would offer a similar experience to exclusive Mi Home stores in metros. These stores would feature most of its products including Mi Phones, Redmi Phones and POCO smartphone. One wall in these stores would exclusively showcase Mi LED TVs. Other products like Fitness band, Lifestyle products, Smart Home products and accessories will also be sold in these stores. You could have the first-hand experience of these products before actually making a purchase.
On the way, if you’d like to open a Mi Store in your neighbourhood, then you could also apply for a Mi Store Franchise. Based on your proposed store location and facilities offered Xiaomi may allow you to open a Mi Store.
With this push, Xiaomi hopes to capture a big chunk of the offline buying customers. Currently, they’re the number one smartphone player in India with over 50 per cent market share in online smartphone market.