The lack of electronic components in India makes achieving better local value addition in the production of electronic products one of the largest obstacles.
Over the next ten years, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi plans to increase its gadget shipments to India to 700 million, a top company official said on Monday.
Speaking on the tenth anniversary of Xiaomi’s operations in India, the firm’s president, Muralikrishnan B, stated that 350 million units altogether, spanning all product categories, had been shipped by the company in the past ten years, including 250 million smartphones.
With great pleasure, I announce that Xiaomi has shipped 25 crore smartphones, 250 million smartphones, and 35 crore gadgets in total across all categories in India in the last ten years of our company’s existence. That period is from 2014 until 2024. We aim to increase our shipment to 700 million smartphones in India now that we’re talking about the next ten years,” Muralikrishnan said in an interview with PTI.
According to him, discussions are underway over the company’s potential to manufacture its tablet in India, and it is considering beginning production of Internet of Things devices powered by artificial intelligence there.
“We have smart TVs, cellphones, and audio goods that are manufactured in India. We’re also looking into ways to localise different AI IoT goods. Additionally, we’re dedicated to strengthening and expanding expertise localization in India. Simpler products, such battery charger cords, are already obtained in India; we have previously discussed this,” Muralikrishnan said.
To produce gadgets in India, Xiaomi has teamed up with Dixon Technologies, Foxconn, Optiemus, BYD, and other companies.
“We will take a more comprehensive and in-depth approach to component localization. Our local non-semiconductor, which is sourced locally, makes up 35% of our overall bill of material (BOM). In the upcoming two years, we anticipate that percentage to increase to 55%,” Muralikrishnan stated.
Due of a lack of electronic components, one of India’s largest industrial problems is achieving more local value addition.
“In terms of domestic value addition, net value addition was 18 per cent in the financial year (FY) 2023 and with our focus on deepening and broadening the component ecosystem, we expect to take that number to 22 per cent by FY25,” said Muralikrishnan.
Estimates of Xiaomi’s smartphone market share in India for the quarter ending March 2024 varied across research analysts.
Cybermedia Research projects it to behind Samsung by only 18.6%, Counterpoint Research projects it to be 18.8%, and IDC predicts it to be roughly 13%.
Nonetheless, Xiaomi is regarded as one of the top four smartphone brands in the nation by all three of the big research agencies.
Counterpoint predicts that in the March quarter, Samsung overtook Xiaomi as the leading participant in the smart TV market.
It calculates that Xiaomi has a 12 percent stake, LG has a 15 percent share, and Samsung has a 16 percent share.
According to Muralikrishnan, the corporation faced difficult times during COVID-19 as its market share shrank.
“We considered 2023 to be the year of renewal, revitalization, and reset. When we got back on the growth track in the second half of 2023, we adjusted our strategy and regained the growth momentum. We have expanded significantly more quickly than the market,” he remarked.