Coronavirus lockdown leads to spike in TV sales

India’s Coronavirus lockdown seems to have led to a sharp increase in demand for televisions sold via online retailers, according to inputs from Dixon Technologies, India’s biggest maker of TVs. Company CEO Atul Lall said that while the demand and sales of other consumer durables dipped during the lockdown, demand for TVs rose. Dixon Technologies, […]

Xiaomi launches Mi Pay wallet in India with ICICI Bank

India’s largest smartphone maker Xiaomi has launched Mi Pay, its payment service, in India, marking the first time the service has been expanded beyond its home market of China. The company will use the National Payment Corporation of India’s UPI and Bharat Bill payment network for its core functionality. The company has tied up with […]

Samsung ends Xiaomi’s six-month reign as India’s top smartphone brand

Samsung overtook Chinese challenger Xiaomi to retake the crown of India’s top smartphone brand in April-June period, according to market tracker CMR, even as Reliance Retail emerged as India’s biggest smartphone maker. A week ago, Counterpoint Research too had come to the same conclusion. Xiaomi had ended Samsung’s decade-long reign at the top of Indian […]

REVIEW: Oppo RealMe 1 beats Redmi Note 5 Pro as King of Mid-Range

China-based Xiaomi, India’s No.1 smartphone brand, has been forced to start an aggressive TV campaign after its biggest rival, BBK Electronics, introduced its own no-frills handset RealMe 1. With this, BBK Electronics — which owns brands such as Oppo, Vivo and OnePlus — has successfully used Xiaomi’s own strategy to challenge the No.1 smartphone brand. […]

CMR calls OnePlus 6 “finest Android smartphone out there”

Market research firm CyberMedia Research has called the OnePlus 6, the latest smartphone from the eponymous Chinese start-up, the ‘finest Android smartphone out there today’. In a note trying to explain the success of the Chinese company in markets like India, Prabhu Ram, head of Industry Intelligence Group at the firm also called it the […]

Xiaomi outsells Samsung 2:1 in India’s largest smartphone market

Xiaomi, the Chinese brand, sold 2 smartphones for every smartphone sold by Samsung in Maharashtra — one of the most urbanized states in India, according to market research firm CMR. The numbers are a cause for worry for Samsung as they indicate that Xiaomi could continue to ramp up its presence in the country as […]

Xiaomi’s new MiTV: Everything, except apps on this TV

When Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi entered the Indian market, few thought the brand would go from zero to No.1 in a matter of four years, leaving biggies such as Samsung, LG and Micromax in the dust. So total has been the disruption that even today, Samsung has still not been able to come up with […]

Will Reliance Jio launch Rs 199 plan with 1 GB per day for 28 days?

A new plan being bundled with Xiaomi’s new affordable plan, Redmi 5A, suggests that Reliance Jio could soon launch its first monthly unlimited plan priced at Rs 199. The plan, valid for four weeks, will give 1 GB of data per day, unlimited voice and access to Jio apps. The bundled offer on Xiaomi 5A […]

Samsung loses title of India’s No.1 smartphone seller to Chinese vendor

China’s BBK Electronics, which sells its smartphones under brands such as Oppo, Vivo and OnePlus, has emerged as the top smartphone seller in India, dislodging Samsung which had been on top for six years. Samsung, however, continues to be the top feature-phone brand in the country. Between its three brands, BBK Electronics had a total […]

Xiaomi to launch Redmi Note 4X in India this Friday?

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi indicated that it is going to launch the Redmi Note 4X, the slightly modified version of the ‘non-X’ model, in India on Friday. It released a teaser video indicating the launch (see below). The model was launched in China in February, and was priced largely at the same level as the […]

Xiaomi at No.2, overtakes Vivo, Oppo in Indian smartphone market

Xiaomi has emerged as the second biggest smartphone brand in India after Samsung as its smash hit Redmi Note 4 broke sales records, according to market share numbers for the first three months of the year. The numbers also revealed that for the first time in eight years, there could be no Indian brand in […]

Redmi 4: Has Xiaomi forgotten the value-for-money proposition?

Xiaomi today launched the Redmi 4 — its ‘entry level’ model with a 5-inch display, but a deeper look at the phone’s pricing reveals that the company may be moving away from its initial positioning as a value for money brand. At first glance, the device appears to be a true-blue entry-level Redmi phone — 2GB of RAM, […]

Micromax Evok Note is no competitor for Redmi Note 4

Micromax has unveiled an online-only, affordably priced mid-range phone in the form of Evok Note, and comparisons are already been drawn between the 5.5-inch phone and the highest-selling phone of 2017 – Xiaomi Redmi Note 4. While the two phones do indeed have similar specifications — such as a 4 Ah battery, a quad-core processor, […]