The Chinese company appears to be unable to keep up with demand for its phones in India — leading to complains on Facebook about the “limited” quantity of its stocks.
by Aloysius Low @longadin September 2, 2014 3:18 AM PDT
By any other measure, Xiaomi’s latest flash sale in India would have been a roaring success. The up and coming Chinese smartphone maker just announced that it sold out all 40,000 units of its new Redmi 1S Android phone. But the sale was over in just seconds, and that appears to have left some of its Indian fans upset.
Some fans have taken to the company’s Facebook page to complain about the limited stock, having been unable to get their hands on the 5,999 Indian Rupee ($99, £60, AU$106) smartphone.
The company itself claimed the phone sold out in 4.2 seconds. Registrations for its next flash sale will open at 6pm India time today.
Unlike other smartphone makers, Xiaomi relies on a flash-sale model to get its products out to its customers, and holds these sales on a regular basis for the countries where it operates, building buzz on social media.
While the company recently got in trouble with Taiwanese authorities over the accuracy of its sales numbers, the situation in India is a different matter altogether.
In India, Xiaomi has partnered with e-commerce retail site Flipkart to sell its devices. The site uses registrations of interest to provide a virtual queue for users to make purchases and so far, the demand for the Redmi 1S far exceeds supply with over 250,000 users wanting to buy the new phone.
The Redmi 1S is the follow up to the Redmi, an Android phone that offered exceptional value for its low price. The Redmi 1S just as tempting — it comes with a new Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor clocked at 1.6GHz and twice the storage space at 8GB. The smartphone still has an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 4.7-inch display with an HD resolution of 1,280×720 pixels.
Besides India, the Redmi 1S is currently sold in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and will be launching in the Philippines and Indonesia on September 4.
