Xiaomi to be among top local producers of handsets in India soon

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, in partnership with Foxconn, is setting up its second assembly plant in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh.

With the new unit, Xiaomi is expecting to more than double its local manufacturing facility as it will have production capacity of two million units or above per quarter.

With this move, Xiaomi will just fall behind smartphone giants such as Samsung, Micromax and Intex, who are the top local producers of handsets in India.

The new plant is spread across 65,000 sq ft and has begun operations.

Currently, Xiaomi sells 1-1.5 million smartphones a quarter from Foxconn's unit.

Xiaomi is the fastest Chinese company to begin manufacturing smartphones in India, within six months of announcing its intent, last year.

Xiaomi has also been aggressive about its expansion plans in India and had re-shuffled its strategy in the starting of 2016.

It is now the third largest smartphone brand in top 30 cities, leaving behind Lenovo and Intex.

Xiaomi was the No 3 brand in the offline space, with 8.1 per cent share, trailing market leader Samsung, which had a 28.5 per cent share, and No 2 Micromax, which had a 11.9 per cent share, in the quarter ended June 2016.