BYR Achieve · 镜像论坛

AKARTA—China’s Xiaomi Inc. entered Indonesia in September to sell low-cost smartphones to an increasingly mobile-hungry population, and its push into Southeast Asia’s largest market is already bearing fruit. “We’ve sold over 100,000 Redmi 1S and Redmi Note phones in Indonesia,” Hugo Barra, Xiaomi’s vice president for global operations, told The Wall Street Journal in an interview. The Redmi 1S is Xiaomi’s cheapest phone, selling at 1.5 million rupiah ($122), and the Redmi Note is its popular phone-tablet hybrid, or phablet. Over the past year the Beijing-based company has also expanded into emerging markets like India, where it has sold more than half a million phones since its first flash sale in July sold out in under 40 minutes. While sales in India have far outpaced those in Indonesia, Mr. Barra said he was quite happy considering Xiaomi is taking baby steps to understand the Indonesian market better. “It’s been really good so far,” he said. Xiaomi, currently the world’s third-largest smartphone maker behind Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., first entered Indonesia in early September by selling its budget Redmi 1S through a flash sale on e-commerce site Lazada. The 5,000 phones made available at that time sold out in less than seven minutes. In November, the company used the ecommerce site to launch its Redmi Note for about two million rupiah ($163). The strategy of selling its phones online and relying on word of mouth for promotion has helped the company expand rapidly in China and India. It has also garnered fans by asking for user input, a strategy it’s currently employing in Indonesia. “In Indonesia, our localization strategy has been mostly fixing bugs, we’re also doing a lot of testing with the fans here before we choose a new phone to introduce,” said Mr. Barra. Before releasing the Redmi Note the company asked select Xiaomi fans in Indonesia to give the phone a test and provide feedback on what they liked and disliked. Xiaomi is “not quite at the stage of building local features,” said Mr. Barra, but its strategy of seeking user input has helped it develop software and features that meet the country-specific needs of users in other places. When asked if the company had plans to invest in any of Indonesia’s content makers, Mr. Barra didn’t dismiss the opportunity. The Beijing-based company recently announced that it will acquire a stake in Chinese video streaming firm Youku Tudou Inc. “But again, it’s also too early to tell what our strategy for content would be here,” said Mr. Barra. “We don’t even know the ecosystem and there are various different players.” While the company hasn’t disclosed its profits in Indonesia, Xiaomi did nearly double its profits last year, and its share of the global smartphone market rose in the third quarter of 2014 to make it the world’s third-biggest smartphone maker. Xiaomi also has a mobile-app store, Mi Market, and a range of other products including Mi Box, an HD set-up box that offers movies and television shows, and Mi TV, a 47-inch 3D TV. Neither is currently available in Indonesia. Mr. Barra said he sees potential for Mi TV to do well in Indonesia given the country’s love of entertainment. But he wants to understand the market better before bringing it here. “It’s really early, we’re just getting started here,” he said.

Wall street journal:Xiaomi make a splash in Indonesia