Following Xiaomi's Redmi 1S 7th flash sale in India on October 21, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer has made yet another mark in the world's 3rd largest smartphone market, when it has sold out 90,000 of its units within 11.9 seconds. The registration started 2 weeks ago and more than 100,000 buyers registered (Read: Xiaomi Holds 7th Flash Sale of Best Selling Mobile Phone Redmi 1S at India Tuesday Festival). The only downside according to reports was the non-inclusion of complimentary screen protector and micro-SIM adapter, which were part of the package during the past 6 sales. Nonetheless, online buyers still wanted to trade their ordinary phones for this top-seller device of Xiaomi.
The Redmi 1S is positioned as a mid-range smartphone priced at Rs 5,999, which is the cheapest device being offered by Xiaomi in the Indian market. To date, an overwhelming total of 490,000 units have been sold in India alone, in the last 6 sales. That doesn't include yet the units sold during Billion Day Sale which is approximately 150,000 according to Xiaomi.
It wasn't a surprise that the Redmi 1S has been a favorite among the Indian market, because of its "high-quality specs and features but reasonably priced" brand positioning. Having a 4.7 inches IPS display, Redmi 1S runs on the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean operating platform, and is powered by a 1.6GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor along with a 1GB RAM. The dual-SIM handset also showcases an 8MP primary camera and a 1.6MP secondary camera. In addition, it provides users of an 8GB internal storage which is expandable up to 32GB via an external microSD card. Moreover, a 2,000 mAh battery powers the entire Xiaomi Redmi 1S smartphone.
Xiaomi started its momentum in India when it sold 60,000 Redmi 1S in 13.9 seconds via online store Flipkart. The success immediately followed by an expansion of Mi3 sales in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.
Xiaomi solidified its position as the "Apple of China" when it hired ex-Google executive Jai Mani as new product manager in India.
