Xiaomi teams up with Redington to set up retail stores pan-India

Xiaomi expects 20-30 percent of its sales to come from brick-and-mortar stores in the next few years as the Chinese handset maker strengthens its offline presence in India. The company Friday said it has partnered Redington to make its smartphones available across physical retail stores. “We have partnered Redington. We will begin with select cities like Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore and later scale it pan-India,” Xiaomi India Head Manu Jain told PTI. He added that the company will sell four models –  **Redmi 2** , **Mi 4** , **Mi 4i** and **Mi Pad** – starting later this month. Xiaomi had launched its first device last year based an online-exclusive retail model with Flipkart in India, its largest market outside of China. In April this year, Xiaomi roped in Amazon and Snapdeal as its online partners and extended sales through its own website as well. Xiaomi also ventured into brick and mortar stores by partnering with retail chain The Mobile Store and private telecom operator Bharti Airtel to reach out to more consumers. “Offline has done well for us. But the focus will remain on online. In China, about 70 percent of our sales come from online and the remaining is offline. In India too, we should see similar trends,” he said. Jain further added: “Currently about 90 percent sales in India is online (Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon)… This should stabilise at about 20-30 percent in the coming time.” Following Motorola’s re-entry into the Indian market through Flipkart, many handset makers like Xiaomi, OnePlus and Coolpad Dazen have taken to the the online channel for selling phones in India. While this was done to tackle supply constraints, industry experts say many of these handset makers are now expanding into physical retail as these issues are being ironed out. Also, e-commerce comprises a small component of the overall handset sales in India and expanding into physical retail offers a wider market to tap into. PTI