Xiaomi plans to add a couple more factories in India to ramp up smartphone capacity

The Chinese company needed newer facilities to meet the growing demand

Little over an year after joining the Make In India bandwagon, Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi was in talks to set up one or two more new factories in India as the company's sales crossed 1 million units for the second consecutive quarter ending June, 2016.

"We are looking to set up one or two more factories in India through our manufacturing partner Foxconn. We are in talks with various states in this already" Xiaomi India head Manu Jain said on Friday.

Four of the six models launched in India so far by the company were being made at the Foxconn's existing plant in Sri City in Andhra Pradesh as the smartphone company added multiple assembly lines at the facility to meet the growing demand locally to a great extent.

According to Jain, about 75 percent of Xiaomi's smartphone units sold in India were being produced in India and they needed newer facilities to meet the growing demand.

Mobile phone makers sold 100 million handsets in India last year and this number is expected to rise to 125 million in the current financial year. Of this half of the handsets would be under the smart phone category, according to Jain.

Xiaomi claims to be the number two brand in the online sales space commanding 12-15 percent market share.

In the offline market, which accounts for 70 percent of the total mobile phones sales in India, Xiaomi aims to grow to 25 percent share from the present 10 percent level as it was awaiting the Government of India approval to launch its single brand retail outlets in the country.

To invest in mobile tech startups

Xiaomi India head said in the next few months the company would be looking to invest in several mobile tech startups in India as they are in the process of finalising the content strategy to launch their Television sets.

The company wants to sell television sets along with the content, some for free, in India as it has been doing it in China. As a part of this strategy the company has already tied up with Hangama group for music and other content earlier this year.

"Hopefully we will be launching our TVs by next year," Jain said in response to a question on the new product category pipe line. The company is also planning to launch air purifiers in the Indian market later this year.

Xiaomi hopes to further grow its smart phone sales in India on the back of Redmi 3 S and Redmi 3S Prime launched earlier this month, by attracting the prospective smart phone buyers to these feature rich models.

"By spending an additional Rs 2,000 over the price of the base smart phones, the customers can get the much advanced Redmi 3S and 3S Prime priced Rs 6,999 and Rs 8,999 respectively. That would be our message to the entry level smartphone buyers,"Jain said.