Xiaomi Targets Brazil With A $160 Smartphone
ForbesChina’s fast-growing electronics giant Xiaomi has finally dipped its toes outside of Asia to sell its Redmi 2 device in Brazil, the world’s fourth largest smartphone market.
The Redmi costs around half the price of comparable Android devices being sold in Brazil by the likes of Samsung, HTC and Motorola: it’s $160 (or $499 Brazilian reals).
Xiaomi’s first international territory is the home country of Hugo Barra, the former Google executive who’s been charged with leading Xiaomi’s global expansion.
“I strongly believe that Redmi 2 will be a game-changer in the Brazilian market,” Barra told a crowd of around 750 people at shopping mall in Sao Paulo on Tuesday.
The Redmi 2 comes in dark grey with a fully laminated 4.7 inch HD screen, and features a 4G dual SIM with slots that support 2G and 3G to cater for consumers who want to use more than one cellular line. It also has a 2 megapixel front camera with a “beautify” mode for taking selfies.
The phone will be manufactured locally in Brazil, in partnership with Foxconn International Holdings.
“This is only the start of our journey,” Barra said. “As our business in Brazil grows, we will be bringing in a greater variety of exciting Mi products.”
For Xiaomi, which sells its products primarily online, Brazil represents an important step towards entering other Latin American markets like Mexico and Colombia.
A successful international expansion is crucial for Xiaomi now that smartphone sales in China, the company’s biggest market, recently slowed for the first time.
Xiaomi is aiming to sell between 80 and 100 million smartphones in 2015, which is almost double the 61 million devices it sold last year.