Expanding its market presence in the country, it seems the Chinese Smartphone maker, Xiaomi is also set to fortify its existence by tripling its workforce headcount in India by 2020. Xiaomi Founder, Lei Jun said at the Economic Times Global Business Summit on February 27 (Monday) that till date, the company has created more than 7,500 jobs in India and expects to create a total of 20,000 jobs in the next three years, Economic Times reports.
India is the second largest contributor to Xiaomi’s global revenue after China, having leveraged on its high-spec affordable Smartphones sold online. The Beijing headquartered Smartphone maker will soon be unveiling its latest offering – an artificial intelligence based product in the next six months, which is an outcome of Internet-based innovation. This model will work in emerging global economies such as India as well.
Xiaomi Founder, Lei Jun
An increase in Xiaomi profits has turned Lei into the twelfth richest person in China with a net worth of $6.8 billion, according to Forbes. Back in 2014, Xiaomi was the most valued tech start-up in the world at a worth of more than $45 billion.
Xiaomi disrupted the Smartphone industry in China with highest cost-to-value ratio. Also advancements in technology and growth in e-commerce platforms contributed to the disruption to help remove middlemen and improve on their profit margins, by pricing products close to cost and in turn reducing prices for the end-user/consumer.
See: Increased Hiring Demand for Senior Professionals in India in 2017
Lei further added, as mobile networks expand in India such as 4G, consumers now have easy access to information at their fingertips. This allows for more transparency in operations and workings, wherein consumers can also seek for more value from the products purchased. This has influenced their buying patterns, behaviours, and also purchase-decisions to seek more value for money advantage.
Lei is banking on India as a growth model before foraying into International markets such as Russia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Ukraine, where the company has presence but want to scale up to higher echelons. Xiaomi is aiming to achieve global revenue of $15 billion by end of this year. Besides online growth challenge, the Chinese Smartphone maker feels resolving the problem of insufficient supplies with respect to demand is critical to ensure long-term business success.
For this reason, the company has now started manufacturing Smartphones under its brand name locally with FoxxConn in Andhra Pradesh since 2015. The Indian manufacturer, FoxxConn recently ramped up capacity to manufacture one phone per second, and now 95 percent of its phones are locally in India. The company will expand its manufacturing capacity in India to cater to greater local demand and will also look at export markets from here.
Also read: Capgemini to Increase its Headcount in India to touch 1-lakh by April 2017
Feature image credit: jagran.com
