Xiaomi was founded in 2010 by serial entrepreneur Lei Jun based on the vision “innovation for everyone” and today, with presence in over 30 countries and regions, Xiaomi is expanding its footprint across the world to become a global brand. Sunil Baby, Offline Sales Head–South and East, Xiaomi India in an interview with retail4growth shares more about their retail expansion in the country.

Tell us about your plans to expand your reach in India with electronic retail chains.

In the south market we are present with four regional retail chains like Sangeetha Mobiles, Poorvika Mobiles and BigC Mobiles and now in east we tied up with Ezone and so far as other national retail chains are concerned with Reliance Digital, Croma and Vijay Sales. We will be entering into strategic partnerships with them. Our line of product Xiaomi Redmi Note4 and Redmi 4A will be made available through all Ezones across east. We have a total distribution network of 10,000 MBO’s who sell our products.

Tell us something about your EBO’s.

We have recently launched our exclusive store at Phoenix Market city Mall Bengaluru and also will be adding 100 EBOs by next two years. We have started with Bangalore which will be followed by Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.

How big are these stores going to be in terms of size and any new retail formats you are looking at?

The Bangalore store is around 750 sq.ft. of space and further we will be looking at having 1000 sq.ft. stores for our EBO’s. We will be experimenting with different retail formats as well, first one being in the mall, while the next target will be a high-street location.

How much does east India contributes to the sales of Xiaomi and what are your further plans for this market?

So far, east India contributes 18% of our sales on a Pan India basis. We have been catering to this market till now through our national distributors but now we have partnered with Ezone and also by the end of early next year we have plans to open an exclusive MiHome outlet of Xiaomi in Kolkata. We will also have our footprints in Patna and Guwahati. We have our major focus in the aftersales services and thus aiming for increasing the total number of service centers to 94 from the existing 83 in the east by July of this year.