Xiaomi’s Big Leap to a Bigger League

Lockdown doesn’t seem to be bothering too much the competition that we have in Indian smartphone market. To remain ahead of the curve, smartphone makers were launching premium flagship smartphones despite that majority of the Indian demography remains under Red or Orange zones due to Coronavirus outbreak since March 23, 2020 till May 31, thus affecting the online and logistics supplies at the offline stores too.

To raise the bar in competition, Xiaomi launched its premium luxury flagship smartphone Mi 10, famous to sport a 108MP rear camera, starting at Rs 49,999, for the 8GB/128GB version. It has another variant too having 8GB/256GB priced at Rs 54,999. The value for money smartphone brand has gone premium officially and, along with it goes the challenges and market dynamics.

If I am not mistaken, this is the first and historical move by the Chinese brand, Xiaomi, to have breached the 50K price barrier and that puts it in direct competition with Oneplus recently launched series, Oneplus 8 and Oneplus 8 Pro.

“Xiaomi has made a no-holds-barred move into the premium smartphones segment, packing the Mi 10 with all the latest tech innovations: from the hardware to the software under the hood, and with a sharp focus on camera specs. In short, it has made no compromises,” said Prabhu Ram, Head-industry Intelligence Group, CMR.

But, there are some tough challenges or rather turmoil going on across the global market as well as in India due to COVID-19. The economies are in distress so does Indian economy. There have been huge job cuts and pay cuts across industries, anywhere less than 30 to 40 per cent. In these grim scenarios Xiaomi has put a heavy bet on a premium luxury flagship smartphone.

“The big litmus test for Xiaomi is if consumers will accept its new premium avatar. The prevailing market conditions are unfortunately not favourable. All said, the Mi10 debut today marks its first legit move into the premium segment, in its rejigged market strategy,” Prabhu added.

The brand connect is also a major differentiating factor when we go premium. You and I do not want to spend half a lakh on any particular brand with no track record in that segment before. If you remember, Xiaomi did try its luck in premium segment two years ago with MI MIX2 but, did not receive much appreciation in terms of sales and success here in India.

“Mi 10 indeed offers the best in class specifications which are required for a flagship segment, but in the price segment beyond 50K plus, it’s a battle between giants namely Apple and Samsung.

Oneplus over a period of time with its unique positioning in the mid premium segment has raised bars to have a table value similar to the high end phones of Samsung or Apple, but it’s still far for Mi branded phones to scale up quickly, considering that Xiaomi devices are still considered value for money and usually placed in affordable segments,” said upasana joshi, Associate Research Manager at IDC India. However this pricing of Mi 10 should be taken into consideration with additional cost of 5G specs, GST hikes, dollar fluctuations and Covid-19 impact, she added.

The smartphone features a 6.67-inch Full HD+ 3D curved AMOLED display with a punch-hole on the top-left corner. The screen also supports a 90Hz refresh rate and 180Hz touch response rate.

The device is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor with Adreno 650 GPU and X55 modem. The smartphone packs a 4,780 mah battery with support for 30W fast charging.

The Mi 10 houses a 108MP camera with a 1/1.33-inch sensor along with OIS, the second camera is a 13MP ultra-wide camera with 123-degree FOV. The other cameras include a 2MP macro sensor and a 2MP depth sensor. The front camera of the device is 20MP and is placed in the punch-hole cutout.

Additionally, the company has also announced Mi Wireless charger at Rs 2,299, Mi Box 4K at Rs 3,499, and Mi True Wireless earphones 2, Xiaomi’s first wireless earphones in the country. earphones are priced at Rs 4,499.

Xiaomi has always aspired to compete with Oneplus in premium segment of above 30K but when the Oneplus itself has raised the prices of its smartphones beyond 50K, it was quite natural for

Xiaomi to follow the lead. Oneplus has been consistently strong in the premium segment since its arrival in India some six years ago whereas Xiaomi has always been, and seen as a budget friendly company. Xiaomi should not forget that the love and acceptance it enjoys here in India is primarily because of affordability factor and suddenly taking a steep turn might overturn the vehicle of growth, may not in that segment but, overall. It’s not only Oneplus which is there to compete in 50K but, there are Samsung, Huawei and Apple and these are trusted and well-established in the markets. ■