With The Redmi Note 13 Series, Xiaomi Is Still Sticking To What Works Best For The Brand In India.
Xiaomi, India's second-largest smartphone maker by market share, is testing brand loyalty and consumer purchasing power with the premium Pro+ variant of its latest mid-range model, the Redmi Note 13. priced at Rs 35,999. At its launch event in New Delhi on Thursday, the company showcased its efforts to revive its ties with its dedicated user base and attract new consumers to the range of products that made the brand famous. popular during India's smartphone boom a decade ago.
The Redmi lineup was the first to put Xiaomi in the spotlight with smartphones packed with advanced specs and features, but at lower prices than its competitors paid for similar devices in 2014. In 2024, Xiaomi is now selling high-end SKUs of its latest Redmi Note 13 series priced between Rs 31,999 and Rs 35,999, with the hope of achieving higher profit margins by being extremely bullish on the most successful mid-range segment.
Redmi Note 13 is the cheapest smartphone in its new smartphone series. (Anuj Bhatia / Photo Express)“I remember till 2018 we considered Rs 20,000-25,000 and above as a premium category. Now, even at Rs 40,000, it is like the frontier of the mid-range,” Xiaomi India marketing director Anuj Sharma told indianexpress.com on the sidelines of the debut of the Redmi Note 13 series in India. “Note is still in the entry-level segment. .medium, but as this segment grows, we must also evolve."
The top model Redmi Note 13 is an addition to the base model as well as an upgraded variant, priced between Rs 16,999 and Rs 27,999.
Sharma said that while users who previously had smartphones under Rs 10,000 would most likely upgrade to the base variant of the Note 13, it is the Note Pro users who climb the ladder and end up with the compromise Note 13 Pro or Note. The 13 Pro will give rise to the Note 13 Pro+. Sharma expects the same consumer behavior towards the Note 13 as he saw last year with the launch of the Redmi Note 12 series. “I have a device that I bought four years ago for Rs 15,000 and if I want to invest money again, I want to buy a device that I love and I will keep it for the next three to four years.”
Sharma agrees with what many analysts and industry experts have been saying for months: The smartphone market is maturing and consumers are increasingly holding onto their phones for longer periods of time. This means that brands like Xiaomi have to recalibrate their products or make drastic changes to sell smartphones in large quantities. Smartphone shipments in India fell 3% to 43 million units in the third quarter of 2023, a trend seen across all major markets.
“There was a single-digit decline in overall smartphone shipments and that was because people either found nothing attractive in their budget or held back and saved more to buy more expensive devices,” he said. that the brand may not be shipping many devices, but improvements are definitely happening.The slow upgrade cycle may also be due to higher smartphone prices, which have been rising steadily for years. “Prices of components and everything went up at the start of the pandemic. So if you want something good, you actually pay more,” explains Sharma. But for players like Xiaomi, which likes affordable or mid-priced smartphones that generate high volumes, this could be a difficult problem.
It gets a little more difficult… the stakes with each new technology are much higher,” he said. “Honestly, it becomes very difficult for someone to stand up and say they want to do something like this or they want the latest sensor or chip, unless the need for that order is huge. If you don't play on a large global scale, you may not be able to access this section. Xiaomi still manages to do this, but it's not as easy as it was five or six years ago.
With the Redmi Note 13 series, Xiaomi continues to bring its best to the brand in India. The big launch that took place in India this week to bring the Note 13 series to the market is proof that Xiaomi is very committed to the mid-range segment. “Ten years ago, your average selling price (ASP) was between Rs 7,000 and Rs 8,000. Currently it is more than Rs 20,000. "You could say that your mid-range segment has grown and the premium segment has grown further," he added. .
For Xiaomi, the mid-range segment is very important to capture the Indian smartphone market and the company does not want to take any risks. To avoid the mistakes of the past, Xiaomi now has a smaller portfolio with clear segmentation to ensure it offers the right products in different price segments.
However, the biggest puzzle that Xiaomi has yet to solve is how to gain a foothold in the premium smartphone market segment. Xiaomi has proven that it has products that can compete with the iPhone and Galaxy S series, but its efforts so far seem less aggressive. “We plan to build it slowly,” Sharma said. “It's impossible to suddenly have a portfolio as big as Redmi; That doesn't make sense.
“We have the Xiaomi 13 Pro priced at Rs 74,999 and we are thinking about what wallets will be in this segment and what we can do. I think you'll see a lot more action from us on the site this year. I think we have the basic formula already in place, so now we can slowly start to develop it.
In recent years, innovation in new smartphones has slowed, both in hardware and software. Industry experts and insiders accuse phone companies of a lack of innovation, leading to declining smartphone sales.
“We are just getting used to the percentage increase from last year. While real growth is still there, our expectations are different. I think it's a good thing that phones have aged to the point where there aren't as many options anymore, but it's good for consumers because you can't go wrong with a device for a second," Sharma said. "The industry is always innovating. “We got some really cool products in the mid-range segment,” he concluded, referring to features in the Redmi Note 13 series that were previously not only available on flagships.