Keeping low prices can still get companies on a high
dubai — Xiaomi loves to keep things simple — and its corporate philosophy is obviously spilling over to its products, much to the delight of its users.
“A very basic tenet of business is to bring the price to an affordable level for the technology you are getting,” Ravi Matthew, deputy CEO and general manager of Xiaomi Middle East and North Africa, said.
“That is our driving force; as our big boss said, 5 per cent is the maximum net profit that a company needs for a product.” Matthew was speaking to Khaleej
Times during the launch of the Chinese company’s new products in Dubai on Wednesday.
“To that extent, buying price is a critical thing to the buying decision of a customer... we’re not trying to sell cheap phones, we’re trying to sell high-technology phones at a reasonable price.”
Matthew backed up his talk with Xiaomi’s newest products for the UAE market: the Pocophone F1, Mi A2 and Mi A2 lite smartphones; the Mi Band 3 fitness tracker; and Mi Laser Projector 150” — all of which boast the latest technologies at a fraction of what other brands would charge.
Either way, he adds — whether it’s an expensive or affordable item — if it gets the job done, one can be completely satisfied with it.
“The average selling price of mobile phones is more or less in one band, moving here or moving there. At each entry there is new technology coming in to keep the price level,” he said.
Chinese smartphone brands have upped their game, posing a serious challenge to the traditional market leaders, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and America’s Apple. This has propped up these companies’ reputation: Ronnie Wang, general manager for the Middle East and Africa at Xiaomi, who spoke alongside Matthew, revealed that the firm’s revenue crossed $15 billion in 2017.
“The concept [several years ago] that anything that comes from China was cheap. Today, everything is from China — whether it’s an from Apple or Xiaomi,” Matthew pointed out.
“That mindset has changed and people are aware that there is high technology coming out from there. They’re getting those products because they know they’re getting value for their money.”
Matthew and Wang says Xiaomi is unfazed by the giants of the business: when the brand first came to the region some years ago, they were told that it wasn’t the right time.
But it all boiled down to the core reason they serve the market.
“Consumers were looking for good technology but didn’t want to pay the Earth,” Matthew said. “So it was the right time.”