Flipkart will sell 20,000 units Xiaomi Mi3 handsets during its flash sale at 2 pm today.
Flipkart has sold 25,000 units in three flash sales so far, but demand for the phone has been around 200,000.
While some customers are expected to have bought other models like Moto G (priced Rs 3,500 less than Xiaomi Mi3), there are still many who have registered for today’s flash sale.
Registration for today’s sale on Flipkart has been stopped.
This will be the fourth sale of the phone on the ecommerce site in the last three weeks. The first two batches are expected to have sold around 10,000 units and the second flash sale, to have sold around 15,000 units.
Flipkart had changed its methodology for the second sale to ‘add to cart’, which made the phones disappear in less than five seconds. The website has also been facing teeming troubles related to staying online in the face of extreme traffic.
The Xiaomi Mi3 has easily become the fastest selling phone ever in India, even though the Chinese company decided to go in for a purely online selling model.
The company offers cheaper rates compared to bigger brands by cutting down on marketing and distribution expenses. Unlike other brands that hire celebrities and spend millions of dollars on promoting their phones, Xioami has always relied on word of mouth and social media to promote itself.
However, with the company failing to cope up with demand, its strategy has also come in for heavy criticism in India.
The Mi3, priced at Rs 14,000 is valued at about Rs 18,000 in the open market due to its superior specifications, though its camera and display are reported to be slightly inferior to Samsung products. Xiaomi recently became the top selling brand of smartphone in China.