Last year, Xiaomi and Foxconn collaborated with each other to manufacture smartphones in India. The Redmi 2 smartphone was the first Xiaomi smartphone which was manufactured at the facility in Sri city, Andhra Pradesh. Now about a year later, both the companies are trying to expand by setting up new manufacturing facilities.
The companies are seeking the permissions from the state government in order to set up manufacturing plants at different locations. Xiaomi India head, Manu Kumar Jain commented on the situations and said, “Currently, we are looking to expand capacity and set up more lines and plants. We are proactively looking at it and are working with our partner, Foxconn”.
Redmi Note 3 has been a popular smartphone amongst the masses and Xiaomi as a manufacturer has received a lot of criticism for not being able to match the demand of the smartphone. Manu Jain informed that the company is trying its best to keep up with the demand and decided to import around six lakh units of Redmi Note 3 from China, but soon enough, the handset ran out of stock because within just three months, almost a million units of Redmi Note 3 were sold in the market.
To match the increasing demand, Xiaomi is seeking permissions from the Department of Industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) to open single-brand retail outlets in India. The company is planning to open retail stores because its online-only model could not facilitate the increasing demand.
Similarly, Apple Inc. is also trying to open single-brand retail outlets in India but they are expecting an exemption from the 30 percent local sourcing norm. On the other hand, Xiaomi is not bothered about claiming the same exemption because the company is apparently manufacturing 75 percent of the devices locally, that are sold in India.
