Xiaomi's Mi 10 And The Unfortunate Problem Of Brand Perception

The Xiaomi Mi 10 is the Chinese smartphone manufacturer’s first flagship smartphone to have come to India in a long time. If anything, we’re glad that Xiaomi is riling up a segment that has primarily been occupied by a few players. But, we can’t help be apprehensive about how Xiaomi will tackle the massive, unfounded expectations that consumers have built up over the last few years.

In a press conference that happened earlier this week, Xiaomi India CMO, Anuj Sharma, shared an anecdote on how he came across a Twitter user who expected Xiaomi to price the Mi 10 at INR 19,990. Yeah, you read that number right.

But this shouldn’t be surprising and the launch of the Redmi K20 series last year is the perfect example that exemplifies this. The Redmi K20 Pro was the first high-end phone from the brand of Redmi and had all the ingredients to justify its launch price of INR 27,999. But being used to aggressive sub-15K prices from the brand, the Indian audience just couldn’t seem to justify the price tag and took it to Twitter to express their “disappointment”.

Apparently, not all of it was genuine disappointment though. Xiaomi’s CMO claimed that a lot of these tweets were from fake accounts and were made to make the Redmi K20 series seem overpriced.

Mi 10 Brings A Lot To The Table

Now before we go ahead, I think it’s important to know that the Xiaomi Mi 10 is a flagship phone through and through. It’s powered by the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor; has a quad-camera setup led by a 108MP sensor; boats of a 90Hz curved punch-hole display, supports 30W wireless charging, and a heck lot more.

With a barrage of high-end features on the Mi 10, it is indeed an exciting device that brings a lot to the table. Obviously, I’ll leave my judgement in our full review of the phone.

Xiaomi's Mi 10

But the point out here is that at a price tag of INR 49,999, the Mi 10 is not an overpriced phone. Since the phone was first launched in China, there are obvious comparisons being done with the Chinese price of the phone. With a starting price of CNY 3,999 in China for the 8GB+128GB variant, that roughly translates to INR 43,000, the official Indian pricing of INR 49,999 seems like a dishonest mark-up at first.

What needs to be known is that the Mi 10 isn’t manufactured in India and all units are imported from China. This adds import duties to the Chinese pricing. The increase in GST rates on mobile phones in India also plays its role. Lastly, the dropping INR/USD rate also needs to be considered to make more sense of the Indian pricing.

Also, another notable feature of the Mi 10 is that subtle changes have been made to the operating system. Unlike MIUI 11 that’s found on other Redmi phones, the MIUI 11 on the Mi 10 is ad-free and also comes with the option of uninstalling pre-installed Xiaomi applications. This solves two issues that have got a lot of flak in the past. With these subtle changes, the Mi 10 is expected to deliver a software experience that you’d expect for the price you’ll be paying for it.

But the problem I’m trying to address here is not a product problem. It’s rather about how Xiaomi has positioned itself in the Indian market with respect to the smartphones that it has launched in the last few years.