Xiaomi to partner with Flipkart, to launch Redmi and Mi3 in India

The launch of Chinese smartphone vendor Xiaomi’s first smartphones in India will happen sooner than what was expected earlier. Xiaomi will launch its first two smartphones in India sometime between mid-July and early-August, reported by BGR India.

Chinese smartphone maker is partnering with Indian e-retail Flipkart to roll-out its devices and will not be selling the products in the country via its own web store. The decision doesn’t seem to be surprising as India being a large country, there are logistics issues, which can be better handled by an existing player like Flipkart.

According to BGR India, Xiaomi hiring Manu Kumar Jain as the head of its India operations before Xiaomi’s official announcement. Unlike Flipkart’s deal with Motorola, where it was importing Motorola smartphones on its own in India, Xiaomi India will import the devices and use Flipkart for retailing them, one source with knowledge of the company’s plans.

Xiaomi will first launch the Redmi and Mi3 in India. The Redmi is its entry-level smartphone with a 4.7-inch 720p IPS display, a MediaTek 6589 quad-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz, 1GB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage along with a microSD card slot. It comes with an 8-megapixel rear and 1.3-megapixel front-facing cameras. The Redmi runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean with Xiaomi’s MIUI V5 on top.

The Mi3 is Xiaomi’s flagship smartphone with a 5-inch 1080p IPS display, a 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal memory. It comes with 13-megapixel rear camera with dual-flash and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, both capable of shooting 1080p videos. The Mi3 also features dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and Wi-Fi Direct. It has a massive 3,050mAh battery as well.

The Redmi will be priced under Rs 10,000 while the Mi3 will cost between Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000.