Recently, Xiaomi sold out 10,000 Mi Band in a record 22 seconds, just a a few weeks after selling a record 2.11 million Xiaomi phones in 24 hours.
The sales had picked up slowly and the company had previously only managed to sell a thousand units in a week. But on Tuesday, May 15, 2015, Xiaomi sold the 10,000 Mi band wearable units in a second flash sale promotion in India.
The flash sale on Tuesday began at 04:30 AM and within 22 seconds, the ten thousand Mi band units were sold out. The sale on the Chinese-tech giant’s website Mi . com in India.
The Mi wearable is a fitness tracking device priced at $18 which converts to Rs 999
Xiaomi sells 2.11 million xiaomi phones in 24 hours
Just some few weeks prior to the sale, Xiaomi, the largest phone manufacturer in China set a new Guinness World Record for mobile phone sales.
Within 12 hours the company had shipped 500,000 orders and 2.11 million handsets in 24 hours on its single platform Mi . com. The strong services that covered whole of China was mainly credited to its 12 major distribution centers and Xiaomi service team which answered more than one million calls in a day.
Other companies like Apple usually sell more than that number, but its mostly through brick-and-mortar stores, carrier stores, and third-party sellers. In Xiaomi case, the record set was because it was through “single online platform”.
The event commonly known as Mi fan festival involved the sale of previously “out-of-stock” phones using the Xiaomi flash sale where would be buyers register, and log on to its website some hours before the sale starts. During this event a total of 14.6 million Mi fans were involved in online sale the whole day. The 2015 fan festival was held during Xiaomi fifth birthday celebration, probably one reason behind the company wanting to make it big deal.
It was able to raise 2.08 billion Yuan or US$432 million through the sale, breaking its last year’s record of 1.5billion Yuan or US$242 million when it sold 1.3 million Smartphones. Guinness Book of Records official were available to witness the sale and present the Guinness Record.
Xiaomi business model employs a different strategy compared to other phone makers like Samsung and Apple. According to the company, its smartphone prices are almost at bill-of-material price but it sells its models for an extended period of time to recoup its investment due to narrow profit margin.
Xiaomi has grown significantly and the company boasts year-over-year growth of 178 percent. Last year, it sold 61 million smartphones and has now become largest phone maker in China and third largest globally after Apple and Samsung with a revenue of 74.3 billion yuan.
It mainly operates in China mainland, Malaysia and Singapore; and has in recent past been finding foot in India and the Phillipines. Xiaomi was co-founded by eight partners in 2010, and after receiving $1.1 billion from investors in December 2014, its valuation has increased to $46 billion, making it the most valuable technology start-up in the world. Other than smartphones, the company also makes TVs, routers and other products which are sold on its website.
Xiaomi has also announced that soon it will expand Mi . com to cover the U.S market as it seeks to move from its main market in Asia.