Xiaomi, the new mobile giant, which hit the Indian market earlier this month and sold its entire Mi 3 stocks in 38 minutes and 50 seconds is Apple's biggest challenger. The company's CEO did something, which no other Apple competitor has done. Lei Jun launched Xiaomi's best offering, dressed in a black T-shirt and blue jeans, mimicking Apple's Steve Jobs.
Comparing the design and manufacturing of Xiaomi's Mi 4 handset to Apple's iPhone 5S, he said: "Our product really is better than the iPhone," he said.
"Our white version is also better than their white version," he joked. "Even our white color is whiter!"
The Indian market seems to be welcoming it. "It seems like a pretty standard smartphone. But its built is unique and its processing superior. It's an Android though, so it's better than the iphone, in terms of options. Priced below Rs 20,0000, it's definitely the better choice" said Umer Chowdhury, a college student
"It looks brilliant and it really does go shoulder to shoulder. Let's see what the iPhone 6 is like, I'm really excited to see which phone turns out superior," Aaqib Khan, Android enthusiast and tester, said.
"No one can deny that the Mi4 is a colossus in terms of raw power. With a 2.5 GHz processor and a 2 GB RAM, it's almost as powerful as my custom-assembled desktop computer. However, what I'm most concerned about is vendor lock-in. If Xiaomi is following in the path of Apple and they restrict their clients like Apple does, then it's a no-go for me: on the one hand, I have this awesome piece of hardware, and, on the other, I can't do anything that I want to do with it." said Aadit Shah, a programmer at Browser Stack.
The company aims to capture the Indian market as part of Lei Jun's drive to give a five-fold boost in sales -- a massive 100 million units by next year and to challenge Samsung and Apple, globally. The company has faced certain hurdles but it is determined to succeed "Building an e-commerce effort in India is a lofty effort -- not something we would be able to do quickly," Hugo Barra, vice-president of Xiaomi, said.
Manu Jain, India Operations head, Xiaomi, said, "We are pleasantly surprised and delighted with the overwhelming response from our India fans. We are committed that, over the next few months, every fan in India will get to own an Mi device"
Michael Adnani, VP, Retail, and Head, Brand Alliances, Flipkart, said, "It is very encouraging to see the scale of response towards Xiaomi Mi3 that is exclusively available on Flipkart. We were confident of the success of Mi3 in India. It has done extremely well, internationally, and we naturally wanted to bring this world-class device to our customers in India. We are working with Xiaomi to ensure that the purchase experience lives up to our Flipkart promise of excellence."
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