Asus vs Xiaomi: Mi3 vs Zenfone smartphone war in India

Asus vs Xiaomi or Mi3 vs Zenfone smartphone war in India may not be that much intense. Nonetheless the Chinese and Taiwanese companies are working hard to get a foothold here.

Two new entrants in smartphone market in India are claiming victories. It is notwithstanding the fact that none of them have sold a large number of smartphones here in India. Nonetheless both are claiming great success in the Indian market.

While Xiaomi has reportedly sold as many as around 50000 units of its rather older but very exciting handset Xiaomi Mi3 (the company has already introduced its new flagship handset Xiaomi Mi4 in the international market) since its launch on FlipKart, the biggest online retailer in South Asia.

The company thought might have launched its wares in the Indian market in July, nonetheless its handsets are effectively available online for not more than four hours. It holds flash sales on Flipkart weekly and last time it put 20000 units on sale that were sold in less than five seconds. The same had happened to its previous sales a week ago as it took the company merely two seconds to sell 15000 units.

The response and enthusiasm is great. Nonetheless if the company continues to come up with so miniscule number of units this warmth will vanish and others with impressive handsets and low pricing will get people’s attention.

Another company that seems to have entered the Indian smartphone market around the same time is Taiwanese tech giant Asus. It had introduced a few decent low priced handsets in the Indian market and was able to sell the same number of units as Xiaomi in just four days.

Asus seems to be very excited about the chances of its smartphones in India. Asus Zenfone are doing very well in India. The Zenfone handsets that come in three sizes — four, five and six inches — with prices low price starting at just Rs 5,999. Peter Chang of Asus says, “We are overwhelmed by the response… as many as 40,000 units were sold out within the first four days of launch…The Zenfone series stocks have been refilled numerous times and are being restocked at regular intervals”.

Peter Chang says that his company by now has sold more than 100000 units of Zenphones in the country. He says that his company and Xiomi strategy was very different. “It is hard to define the sellout per week. But to match up to the potential of this series we are ensuring the availability of stocks in both online and offline mediums.”

On Xiaomi’s strategy, which has been very successful so far, Chang said: “We respect each brand’s strategy. We believe that every brand has its specific, defined fan engagement, product strategy and social media strategy crafted with much research and analysis, just like ours.” The best thing about Asus is the fact that they already have a massive service and after sale set-up in place across India. It is going to be in its favour in the long term.