Why Xiaomi, the Apple of China, has generated hype in India

Known as the 'Apple' of China, Xiaomi entered the Indian market on July 15 2014 with an exclusive sales tie-up with Flipkart for smartphone Mi 3. The Chinese handset maker priced Mi 3 at Rs 13,999. The smartphone was sold within 30 minutes on Flipkart on the first day. Flipkart said it received about 1,00,000 registrations for the Mi3 between July 15 and July 21.

The smartphone was announced in China in September last year. It features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset with a quad-core processor clocked at 2.3GHz, 2GB of RAM, a 5-inch 1080p IPS display with Gorilla Glass protection, a 13-megapixel camera and 16GB of internal storage.

Normally smartphones with similar specifications are priced around Rs 30,000. The Mi3 competes against the Motorola Moto G, which did amazingly well when launched in India in February this year.

The Mi 3 resembles the high end Lumia smartphones, minus plastic. It has got an aluminium magnesium chassis and the matt silver finish looks nice. The 3.5mm port along with micro-SIM tray is on the top edge with volume controls and power key on the right panel.

The third flash sale of the Mi 3 smartphone was over in just two seconds on August 5, 2014, the Chinese handset maker posted on its Facebook page. The next sale of the Mi 3 will be on August 12 and registrations for the same will begin at 6 pm on Tuesday, the company said.