Xiaomi Corp (小米) plans to introduce more “smart” home products and increase the number of direct-sales stores and Mi Home showrooms in Taiwan this year, executives said yesterday.
“Our goal is to strengthen our brand image in the market through efforts on ‘offline’ stores and events,” Xiaomi Taiwan general manager Henman Lee told reporters after a Taipei launch event for the Mi Note 2 and Redmi Note 4X smartphones.
The Chinese smartphone vendor entered the Taiwan market in 2013 and mainly sells products through e-commerce platforms and its online store in this nation.
It opened its first showroom, Mi Home, in Taipei in 2015 and waited more than one year to open its first direct-sales store, in Kaohsiung, at the end of last year.
The company plans to open five Mi Home and direct-sales stores nationwide this year, after the brick-and-mortar stores received better-than-expected responses, Lee said.
The Mi Home in Taipei contributed NT$200 million (US$6.5 million) in revenue last year and the Kaohsiung store had more than 30,000 visitors per month, Lee said.
Xiaomi Taiwan is to invite one of the firm’s cofounders to host a large media event in Taipei at the end of next month to introduce a wide-range of smart home products, mainly white appliances, to the market, Lee said, but declined to say if it would be chairman Lei Jun (雷軍), who visited Taiwan nearly two years ago.
Xiaomi does not plan to increase retail prices for its handsets in Taiwan for now, even though the depreciation of the yuan has added to its costs, he said.
The 5.7-inch curved-screen Mi Note 2 is priced at NT$16,999 and the 5.5-inch Redmi Note 4X is priced at NT$4,999, Xiaomi said.
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