Xiaomi announces Rs 6,000-7,000 crore investment plan in Indian startups

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi on Monday announced Rs 6,000-7,000 crore investment plan in 100 Indian start-ups companies in order to strengthen their hardware and software ecosystem. Earlier in 2017, the tech giant had invested in 10 start-ups and with the new plans, they are taking a step forward towards their goal.

"Till 2017 the net investment of the company was Rs 3,000 crore. In the next five years we will invest Rs 6,000 crore to Rs 7,000 crore in around 100 start-ups in India," PTI quoted Manu Kumar Jain, the Managing Director and vice-president of Xiaomi India.

According to Jain, Xiaomi is especially interested to invest more in mobile tech side with the aim to strengthen hardware and software ecosystem of the start-ups. He has also promised to keep the momentum in Xiaomi's fastest growing success all over the world.

Much to the delight of customers, the company has recently unveiled its first flagship experience store in Chennai and is offering products sold in China but not available in India.

The products include an electric cycle, a self- balancing scooter, an electric folding bike, smart shoes, smart cooker, laptop, water purifier, he said.

"The company will use feedback from customers on these products to understand the level of customisation required before launching some of them in India," Jain added.

While Xiaomi was actually introduced to build an internet company back in 2000, currently it is known to be one of the leading smartphone companies across the globe. However, the company has several internet products called 'ecosystem products'. Smart shoes, smart cycles, smart scooters, smart air purifiers, smart water purifiers, and smart routers are some of those internet products available in China.

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Talking about Xiaomi's future plans Jain said, "Our aim is to make everything smart, internet-enabled and eventually run by a smartphone.

"Everything that we have in China is not suitable for India market," he said. "For instance, we have a water purifier but it doesn't have a water tank whereas in India market where you have power and water shortage, you need a water tank," he added.

Xiaomi had already launched its televisions in China and is currently selling smartphones, air purifiers and different mobile accessories across Indian markets.

"India is a very important market for us and within a very short time, we have been able to capture significant market share in the smartphone market. TV is a big category after smartphones for Xiaomi and in China, we are the fastest growing TV brand," he said.

The combined market share of the company in online and offline is 27 per cent as per market research institute GFK, according to Jain.

"We grew almost 20-30 times in offline. We already have 2,500-Mi preferred partners in 25 big cities in India," he said.

While the company has over 750 mobile service centres in India, it wants to further manufacture other electronic products across the country.

"But we need certain volumes to start manufacturing and you have to do a return-on-Investment analysis. If that is favourable, we would want to set up local factories for everything here," Jain stated.

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The company has expanded to five big warehouses and 26 smaller ones in India, he added.

To a question, he said Chandigarh is one of the biggest centres for the company in north India.

"As per GFK, Xiaomi holds 40.3 per cent market share in Chandigarh's offline smartphone market for January 2018," he said.

(With inputs from agencies)