Xiaomi is expanding into Latin America via Mexico by selling the Redmi Note 4. The Note 4 will be available by the end of May at Best Buy, Sam’s Club and Coppel. Retailers such as Amazon, Elektra, Best Buy and Walmart will sell the handset online, notes TechCrunch.
Redmi Note 4 coming to Mexico
Initially, the Chinese company will sell its budget-friendly Note 4 phablet for around $287, but in the future, it plans to sell the smaller Redmi 4X (priced about $209) and other models as well. The company is also bringing its Mi Community app to Mexico. The app helps fans interact with the company and be informed about new launches and offers.
The Chinese company also has operations in Brazil, the home country of its former international head Hugo Barra. However, the company saw some major headwinds last year and had to curtail its operations in the region following taxation issues and manufacturing policies. Despite those issues, the company is looking to expand in the region, notes TechCrunch.
What about the U.S. launch?
After the launch in Mexico, speculations are that the U.S. launch is also not far away. Just last month in an interview with Engadget, Wang Xiang, Xiaomi’s senior vice president, stated that even though Hugo Barra has hinted at a possible launch in the United States this year, Xiaomi is a little more occupied with expanding into elite and premium markets such as the United States and the Western Europe.
Though there is no word on the U.S. launch date, Xiang, the company’s new head of global strategy, recently told CNET that a U.S. launch could be in the cards by 2019. Xiang replaced Barra, who joined Facebook.
A big difference between customers in the United States and those in the rest of the world is that users elsewhere buy their favorite phone and thereafter select their network connection. However, in the United States, users usually buy the phones related to their wireless providers. Therefore, the Chinese company first wanted to support U.S. wireless network bands and hit deals with carriers to make its phones widely available, notes Liliputing
How Xiaomi plans to beat rivals
Xiaomi is a top brand in China, but recently, a fleet of competitors such as Oppo, Vivo and Huawei have affected the business by embarking on an offline sales strategy. The Chinese company started as an online-only brand, but now it is planning to expand its offline reach to beat the competition.
Xiaomi has already brought a bezel-free phone to the world, but the Chinese company has no plans to mass-produce bezel-free models.
“We didn’t go for a bezel-free look because it’s a different product category,” said Xiang, referencing the newly-released Mi 6. Xiang also stated that the Mi series has always been the flagship, “so it’s always been more mainstream, more conventional. Plus we wanted to keep the Mi design language going forward.”
Xiang, however, added that the company would like to continue its experiment with a better bezel-free smartphone and also confirmed the rumor about the Mi Mix 2 coming later this year, notes SCMP.
