Chinese technology firm Xiaomi, which has three manufacturing facilities in India, is set to hold a Xiaomi supplier summit during April 9-11, which is supposed to create multiple job opportunities and bring in foreign funds to India by collaborating with over 50 of its partners, who will check up on the parameters of setting up a business based in India.
Since India is the second most important market for Xiaomi, after that of its homeland, it is eager to help its manufacturing unit partners set up local bases in several Indian states. According to the invitation letter, Xiaomi wants to help its partners understand opportunities and incentives offered by the state and central government of India, market policies, FDI policy, and specific ways of working in India.
While the government is taking significant steps for local electronics manufacturing, a lot of the products have to be imported, especially from China. So the focus is currently on component production. India is one of the fastest growing Mobile markets globally; the government has imposed a 10% duty for importing components. Therefore, both parties (namely the manufacturer and government) profit from boosting domestic production. According to research by IDC, a hefty number of mobile phones were shipped in India in 2017, which is around 288 million, showing a 16% growth annually. Samsung led the lineup of the smartphone market shares with a whopping 24.7%, closely followed by Xiaomi at 20.9%. On the other hand, Vivo held 9.4%, Lenovo 7.8%, and Oppo had 7.5%.
Of the three manufacturing facilities of Xiaomi in India, two are in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh, which manufactures smartphones; one is in Noida, which manufactures power banks in correlation with HiPad Technologies. Over 95% of Xiaomi’s smartphones sold in India are domestically produced.