Xiaomi faces war from low cost mobiles

New Delhi: Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi asserted on March 12 that the company is not all about cheap products and can’t sell products below their manufacturing costs, as it faces competition from other cheaper phones flooding Indian market. 

“We are not here to sell cheap devices. We are here to sell amazing product value. Amazing things, incredibly engineered; we thought, we developed—both hardware and software— for an amazing price,” said Xiaomi vice-president Hugo Barra during the launch of its smartphone — Redmi 2 — and tablet ‘MiPad’ in India.

Barra admitted that in India some companies try to boost of specifications to attract consumers but said that overall product experience matters. “There is only so much one can do about prices. We can’t come here and sell a device below our cost because that is not something that makes business sense,” said Barra. Xiaomi which entered the Indian market in July last year has sold over a million phones within five months. Meanwhile, the company will set up its data centre in the country by June 2015 to address data security concerns.