Xiaomi expanding to Africa in September

Xiaomi, one of the most successful phone makers in China is all set to enter the African market in September. For this Xiaomi has partnered with pan-Africa distributor, 'Mobile in Africa' to sell its products in 50 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Forbes reported, citing the distributor’s president, tech entrepreneur RJ van Spaandonk.

Mobile in Africa is also setting up online stores in 14 African countries and, similar to Xiaomi’s model in China, will sell its smartphones mostly online. Xiaomi will initially launch the Redmi 2 and Mi 4 phones in Africa priced at ZAR 1999 ($160) and ZAR 3,999 ($320) accordingly.

African continent has been the fastest growing mobile region for the past five years, and saw Q1 smartphone sales surge to 47%. Only recently Google expanded the Android One Program to Africa with the $87 Infrix Hot 2.

Founded in 2010 and headed by Lei Jun, Xiaomi is targeting international expansion in emerging market after entering Indian market in July last year. The company stepped out of Asia and expanded to Brazil on June 30. It partnered with Foxconn to manufacture the phone locally in the country.

Besides China, India and Brazil, Xiaomi is selling its products in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia. The company plans to expand to Vietnam, Russia, Turkey and Mexico in the coming months.

Recent analyst reports says that Xiaomi is now the world's third largest smartphone maker, behind Samsung and Apple. In China, it is the number one smartphone manufacturer ousting Apple from the top spot. The company's smartphones offer quality for decent prices. It is labeled as 'the Apple of China". 

Kaiser Bey

Kaiser is a tech enthusiast who likes to write, read and talk about tech. He dreams of going to Mars and never come back. We hope that you find his posts on AndroGuider helpful and informative