Xiaomi India’s Manu Jain on Coronavirus impact, handset exports and new products

Xiaomi, which became India’s largest handset brand in Q4 2019, is evaluating expanding its exports from India, but underlined the need for higher government incentives and globally consistent standards to enable its move. Speaking to ET’s Danish Khan, Xiaomi India MD Manu Jain said the company has alternate supply lines from Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Europe, US and Japan. It will however get a clearer picture on the impact of the deadly coronavirus after the Chinese New Year break ends, depending on the extent of the lockdown in factories. Edited excerpts:

Your comments about Xiaomi’s performance in the October-December quarter.

For the Q4 and the entire year 2019, we had approximately 29% market share. We were 53% bigger than Vivo and 93% bigger than Samsung. And, for the first time, we became the largest phone brand, which includes mobile feature phones plus smartphones.