What Xiaomi PH’s physical stores mean for consumers

Last week, Xiaomi Philippines has announced that Mi products will soon be available in retail stores. This is a stark contract to their core strategy of selling directly to consumers rather going thru dealers and retailers, thereby saving up on cost and passing the savings to Mi fans.

So, why the move to offline from an pure online strategy? Perhaps, you might want to read up on our previous article on “Top 5 Crazy Filipino Gadget Buying Habits“.

Xiaomi PH used to be exclusively sold by Lazada Philippines since last year. They’ve also tried doing a pop-up store sometime last year, giving them insights on offline buying habits of Filipinos.

But why are they going offline when the online-only strategy has been their biggest advantage over many other brands in the region? Well, it could be 2 things:

1) Low online adoption. Despite Lazada’s digital marketing prowess, not enough people are buying Xiaomi products which could be due to several factors — provincial fulfillment (couriers do not deliver to some remote areas), low credit card penetration (just 5%), and low internet penetration (35%).

2) Consumer Confidence. Some online retailers have shared with us that as many as 25% of their potential customers are afraid of transacting online. Many others also want to touch and feel the devices first before deciding to buy one. Add to the fact that Xiaomi isn’t yet a household name like Samsung, Apple, Sony or LG.

This move is not unique to the Philippines. Xiaomi has done this in India as well.

Better Availability and Customer Reach. The biggest advantage to customers will be provincial availability of Mi products. That means you can just go to a number of retailers (perhaps MemoXpress or Villman) and inspect the gadgets before buying. This will also place the devices on open sale (no more 1 day flash sale).

Higher Suggested Retail Price. By shifting from pure online to offline (dealers, retailers), Xiaomi will need to increase the SRP of Mi products. The additional margins will allow dealers/retails to make a decent profit to carry the items. This could be somewhere between 15 to 30%.

One example is the Mi In-Ear Headphones which now has a bumped up price to Php849 from Php695. That’s basically around 22% increase on the original price. Expect other models to be have similar percentage in price increase.

Here are our estimates:
Mi Powerbank 10400mAh – Php645 to Php785
Mi Powerbank 10400mAh – Php1,299 to Php1,599
Redmi 1S 8GB – Php4,999 to Php5,999
Redmi 2 8GB – Php5,999 to Php7,299
Mi Pad 16GB – Php10,999 to Php13,499

Online Price to Increase as well. While it makes business sense that retail stores will carry a higher price tag due to additional cost and margins, the online price (Lazada listed price) should remain the same right?

Well, there’s the One Price Tag Law (2006) that requires sellers to use a single unified price tag for their products. This was imposed before to prohibit merchants from giving two different prices — one for cash buyers and another higher price for credit card buyers (passing on the credit card charges).

This law also applies to the setup of Xiaomi. If the offline price is higher, then the online price needs to be adjusted to reflect the same price.

The Bottom Line. Well, it boils down to two inter-dependent factors — wider distribution channel vs. higher retail price. We think this will be a welcome change especially to provincial consumers. However, repeat Xiaomi customers/fans who are familiar with the brand and the quality products might be disappointed with the price increase.

With the new estimated SRP of MI products, do you think they are still a good buy?

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Xiaomi to launch a mid-range Mi4i on April 23?

Xiaomi is set to launch a new global Mi smartphone on April 23 in India, and now the rumors are pointing out to a mid-range version of its flagship Mi4, sporting more modest specs.

xiaomi-m4

According to the Singapore Infocomm Development Authority database, the new device will be named as the Mi4i, and it might probably be a low-end version of the Mi4. A Geekbench 3 result also proved that the Mi4i exists, and is said to sport a 1.6GHz octa-core Qualcomm processor, 2GB of RAM, and refreshed MIUI7 on top of Android 5.0.2 Lollipop made along with the Android Open Kang Project (AOKP).

xiaomi-mi4i-01

This could very well be initial answers to some teasers Xiaomi has been posting lately:

How much would the top Chinese company sell this smartphone? Will it land on our shores? We’ll find out soon as Xiaomi is set to unveil the Mi4i on a ‘Global Mi phone premiere’ in a few days.

{Via}

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Xiaomi Announces a Beefier RedMi 2

After getting a certification from FCC’s Chinese counterpart, Xiaomi CEO confirmed that they will be offering a beefier variant of the RedMi 2 which will come with twice the amount of RAM and internal storage than the original version that they announced in the early part of this month.

Xiaomi RedMi 2 16Gb

Xiaomi RedMi 2 specs:
4.7-inch HD IPS OGS display @ 1280×720 pixels, 312ppi
AGC Dragontrail Glass
Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad-core CPU
Adreno 306 GPU
2GB RAM
16GB internal storage
Supports up to 32GB via microSD
8 megapixel rear camera w/ LED flash
2 megapixel front camera
4G/LTE
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
GPS, A-GPS
USB OTG
Android 4.4 Kitkat
MIUI 6.0
Li-Po 2,200mAh battery
134 x 67.2 x 9.4mm
133g

Apart from the increased RAM and default storage, the rest of the configuration remains unchanged. At the moment, there’s no word about the SRP and the official release date of the new Xiaomi RedMi 2.

Source

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Comparison: RedMi 2S vs RedMi 1S

Lazada Philippines

The newly-launched Xiaomi RedMi 2s is the latest addition to the company’s growing consumer electronics portfolio. But how does it stack up against its predecessor? Find it out after the break.

RedMi 2S vs RedMi 1S

Above is a chart that helps us identify the differences between the two handsets, specs-wise at least. The biggest improvement, if you can consider it as such, in the new model is the use of a new 64-bit processor from Qualcomm which, in theory, should bring faster performance to the RedMi 2S, not to mention add LTE connectivity to its arsenal.

Another note-worthy improvement that the RedMi 2S has over its predecessor is the use of an OGS panel which is partly to be credited to the RedMi 2S’ thinner and lighter frame.

Xiaomi RedMi 2S

Speaking of its form factor, apart from being thinner than the RedMi 1S, the new smartphone is shorter and has a narrower frame. It’s also 26 grams lighter than the previous model, despite of having a slightly larger battery pack.

As you can see, the new Xiaomi RedMi 2S is actually more of an incremental upgrade to the RedMi 1S rather than a completely new beast. But it doesn’t change the fact that the RedMi 2S is still a competitive player in the midrange segment, one that has the potential to pose the same amount of threat to its competition as its predecessor did during its heyday.

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