THE EXPLICABLE ABSENCE OF XIAOMI PHONES IN NIGERIA

Introducing Xiaomi Phones

Xiaomi is the third largest phone manufacturer coming only behind Apple and Samsung, companies which have been in the mobile device industry for as long as I remember. It is worth emphasizing that Tecno, Infinix and their ilk in Nigeria are not even among the top five phone making brands. The company was founded in 2010 and put up its first phone for sale the next year.

Xiaomi prefers to name its products “mi” or “Redmi”, thus we have phones like Xiaomi Mi3, Xiaomi Mi4 and Redmi Note 3. The operating system (OS) is MIUI which is majorly a conflation of Apple’s IOS Google’s Android (Originality no too matter to the Chinese man!)One notable event that was the rave of the moment at that time was the switching of sides of Hugo Barra who was then the vice-president of product management for the Android platform to Xiaomi.

The company has a very strong presence in China and India, the two most populated countries in the world. So why are Xiaomi phones not yet on the streets in Nigeria, the world’s most populous black nation known for flexing its purchasing power on foreign commodities after all, there is no one phone that is made in the country. Well, like they say in my local parlance “e get why”. Some of the not so far-fetched reasons are stretched out as we go on.

One of the core tenets of Xiaomi is to keep a close leash on its products such that they can withdraw or supply products based directly on their terms. In a unique way to achieve this, the company literally eliminated lots of middlemen in its distribution chain, thereby establishing a producer-customer relationship.

This would have been impracticable without the internet. The company is known to engage its customers its online for a and actually put to work recommendations and constructive criticisms made by participants. It sells its products big time via its website, www.mi.com –a domain name it had to acquire from the original owner expensively.

Xiaomi Quality Phones at Affordable Prices

Xiaomi is known for its flash sales that most times results in phones being sold out in a matter of minutes. One of the implications of this its ideology of eliminating middlemen is that it would almost definitely rebuff any business partnerships and arrangements aimed at selling its phones in wholesale or retail by physically sited outlets. If this wasn’t the case online marts like Jumia and Konga would have been selling these phones.

Ad: Buy Xiaomi Redmi4A 4G Smartphone for $93.99 (Around N30,000)

Putting into consideration the fact that the only companies ahead of it have been in the game way longer, it is safe to say that in the not so distant time, the company’s presence would be felt in Nigeria just like in South Africa. When compared with the only two other mobile device firms, that is Samsung and Apple taking into consideration how long they have been in the business, one can without fear of contradiction say Xiaomi has bettered them in terms of sales but definitely not in terms of quality of products.

Next is the geographical location of the company. Xiaomi is strategically and favorably positioned in the country with the largest population in the world. What this means is, it has more than enough on its plate in the good sense with the inevitable outcome of countries like Nigeria being in the backburner of its scheme of schedules. A cursory look at Xiaomi shows it got it all planned out because Xiaomi is going for countries with the highest population.

For instance after capturing China, it went for India, a country of more than one billion people second only to China. The company would have made inroad in US but for its already overcrowded mobile device ecosystem. So, they are rather entering the US with other devices and went as far as partnering with amazon which is owned by Jeff Bezos.Xiaomi also has a strong presence in the fourth largest country in the world, Indonesia and even in Brazil to say the least.

Read: Google Pixel XL vs Apple iPhone 7 Plus: Expert Review

At the risk of reiteration, Xiaomi is definitely going to get to Nigeria sooner or later, the downside being that it is already a latecomer. The fact that it is aiming for largely populated countries is enough assurance. I tried navigating through its only online shopping mart in Africa, that is, mia.com to see if as a Nigerian I could buy one. It turned out to be a futile attempt as their shipping was restricted just to South Africa. Thus the best bet to get Xiaomi phone as it stands is through an acquaintance that travels to South Africa or Asia.

Just two months back, Xiaomi threw a challenge to Apple and Samsung with the Mi Mix which boasts of the largest screen-to-body ratio. It is almost bezel-less, that is the screen covers almost all of the phone’s front appearance and has a 6.4-inch screen. It comes with 4gigabyte RAM, 128gigabyte storage capacity, 16megapixel camera and a 4,400mAh battery. This is one phone reputed for once to be original by Xiaomi. The phone is however, exclusive to China.

Where to Buy Xiaomi Phones in Nigeria

Are you planning to buy Xiaomi Phones, you can find a variety of them on many online retail stores like Konga and Jumia, but the major challenge with these Nigerian stores is that many of the products are been sold by third party retailers and therefore, most of the stores do not have direct deals with Xiaomi and this will make a Xiaomi Phone more expensive that expected.

If you want to enjoy the benefit of Xiaomi phones great prices, then you need to head over to Gearbest Xiaomi Store where you will get the best Xiaomi phones at half of the prices on the Nigerian retail stores.

As at the time of writing this post, you can get Xiaomi Redmi 4A device for just $93.99 (around N30,000) with FREE shipping to Nigeria. This is a phone with great specs (5.0 inch MIUI 8 Snapdragon 425 Quad Core 1.4GHz 2GB RAM 16GB ROM 5MP + 13MP Cameras Bluetooth HID Gyroscope Infrared Accelerometer).

And so many other great prices are available at Gearbest Xiaomi store.