Xiaomi’s plan to expand and reach more people includes opening more retail stores in its home country of China.
The company will reportedly open about 20,000 more retail stores across mainland China over the span of three years in order to expand its business in rural parts of the country in an attempt to help connect the world via mobile technology and of course, make more sales.
China happens to be the world’s largest smartphone market and Xiaomi is acing its rival Huawei in the local market while planning to continue its growth program among which is the plan to create more retail stores.
The announcement was made by the company’s senior vice-president Lu Weibing via Weibo on Thursday.
Investment details were not given but the company is planning to take its business to places that are offline such as rural areas.
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One of the main reasons why Xiaomi has decided to take on such an ambitious plan is due to the fact that small towns across China’s countryside account for 70% of the domestic smartphone market.
Xiaomi initially started its business online and grew to create 10,000 brick-and-mortar stores across the country.
“Xiaomi won’t aim at surpassing any particular brand,” Lu said in his post. “Since Xiaomi’s goal is to be No 1, it means surpassing all other smartphone brands – including Apple.”
Xiaomi is unsurprisingly taking advantage of Huawei’s ordeal which has everything to do with the company’s sanction by the US government.
This had automatically thrown Xiaomi into the limelight making the company one of the biggest smartphone makers across the globe right behind Samsung and Apple to settle for a third position which was formerly held by Huawei.
China’s smartphone market volume reached 76.5 million units in the third quarter, down 9 per cent from a year earlier, amid stagnant local demand and component shortages in the industry, according to a report released last week by Counterpoint Research.
Huawei’s former sub-brand Honor in fact overtook Xiaomi to take over the third position according to a report by Counterpoint.
Xiaomi had a 14 percent share of the domestic market last quarter, behind Honor, Oppo and Vivo – with shares of 15 percent, 20 percent, and 23 percent, respectively.
“Xiaomi’s position is expected to be challenged the most by Honor,” said Counterpoint senior research analyst Ethan Qi in the report. He indicated that both Xiaomi and Honor have “a higher sales contribution from online channels”, compared to other major Chinese Android smartphone vendors.
The global shortage of chips has caused a 6% decline in global smartphone unit shipments in the Q3 of the year.
It said Xiaomi shipped 44.4 million units last quarter, down 5 per cent from a year ago, because it was “severely hit” by component shortages. The firm ranked No 2 globally behind Apple, which shipped 48 million units in the same period.
While Xiaomi is trying to dominate the global; smartphone market, the fact that it’s a Chinese brand still puts a stigma on the company.
One such scenario was when the Lithuanian government recommended that its citizens throw away their Chinese smartphones and singled out Xiaomi due to their censorship capabilities just like Huawei.
