Smartphone maker Xiaomi woos buyers off mainland

Customers try out Mi3 smartphones at a flagship store of Xiaomi in Wuhan city, Central China's Hubei province, March 30, 2014. Sun Xinming for China Daily

Xiaomi Corp, a Beijing-based smartphone maker, faces branding and localization problems in its pursuit of rapid, healthy development beyond China's mainland.

Xiaomi - seeking to emulate the success of Apple Inc, the world's most valuable brand according to Forbe's - offered 1 million of its smartphones on Tuesday to woo mainland customers via its website and an additional 143,000 handsets to mobile phone shoppers in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. The promotion was part of the activities to mark the Mi Fan Festival, which falls on April 8.

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The company expanded overseas last April, a move originally planned for the second half of 2012. Perhaps cautiously, it entered the Hong Kong and Taiwanese markets first, then moved further into Southeast Asia. It has no presence in Europe or North America.

The overseas market contributed less than 5 percent of Xiaomi smartphone sales in 2013. It has offices in Taiwan and Singapore, with a dozen or so employees.

Though Xiaomi said it got a warm welcome in places such as Hong Kong, it did not invest much in further exploring those places.

"We have no staff in Hong Kong. The city's business is operated by our Beijing headquarters," a Xiaomi representative, who asked not to be named, told China Daily.

Xiaomi has worked with two telecom carriers in Hong Kong - Hutchison Whampoa Ltd and PCCW Ltd. It has rarely been involved with offline promotions; all local advertisements and market campaigns are conducted by the two operator partners, the representative said.

"We do conduct events online, on our Hong Kong official website and social networking platforms such as Facebook. Our business model on e-commerce applies to overseas markets as well," the representative said.

Ruby Lee, an employee at a HongKong outlet of 3, Hutchison Whampoa's telecom service brand, said that compared with international brands like Apple and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Xiaomi is not that well - known.

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