Zee Media Bureau/Vibhuti Jaitley/Reema Sharma
New Delhi: Hugo Barra, Vice President, International, Xiaomi, on Wednesday said that connectivity is the key factor in India.
Speaking during the ongoing BGR India's first marquee technology thought leadership conference: Dream 500 Million Smartphones: Making India Smarter, Barra expressed optimism on 4G connectivity in India.
He said that affordable pricing of smartphone is also very important and expected that smartphones will become less expensive in India.
Answering to question on whether Xiaomi will give smartphone under Rs 5,000 Barra said that this is probably not going to happen anytime soon.
Barra added that the Indian and Chinese markets are similar in terms of the size though the culture of both the countries are different in terms of opportunities which is hyper localised.
On being asked about investments and start-ups in India, he said that the company is in the beginning stage and building team office, after sales services.
Barra said that Xiaomi is an internet company with interest in e-commerce. "We build service and we want to build that model in India. We will be building localised mobile services in India," he said.
Talking about R&D services in India, he said, " We want centres to become global development services. We want to build services in India for global market".
"We also want to build mobile internet services with local players," he added.
Discussing on the road map for India, Barra said,"Redmi 1S is already there. Note 4G is coming soon. The new phone will come in India shortly. Our aim is to shorten the gap with product launch and product availability."
Replying to the question on Xiaomi's pricing strategy, he said, "We want the pricing of the phone to be very close to the cost. We want to ensure better user experience for the people of India. We want to sell high quality phone and not just cheap phones."
Dream 500 million smartphones is a vision of an India where people are well informed and well connected. It is a radical tent pole for India to transition from developing to a developed nation. To achieve this dream, stakeholders like handset manufacturers, carriers, government, apps and service providers, need to align towards a common goal.
To bring synergy into this effort, BGR India has conceptualized this thought leadership conclave to bring the entire fraternity on a single platform. The day-long event will witness stakeholders from the industry share their views and commitments to achieving this dream. What will it take to reach the 500 million smartphone user base in India, what will be its implications, what services can we expect first-time smartphone users to experience and most importantly, by when can we achieve this milestone.
Some of the industry leaders speaking at the event include:
Hugo Barra, Vice President – International, Xiaomi
Dr Sandeep Sibal, Country Manager and Vice President – Business Development, Qualcomm India and South Asia
Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder and Managing Director, One97
Debjani Ghosh, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Group and Managing Director for South Asia at Intel Corporation
Raghuvesh Sarup, Director Marketing, Nokia India Sales Pvt Ltd
Michael Adnani, Vice President, Retail and Head, Brand Alliances, Flipkart
Peter Chang, Region Head – South Asia & Country Head, Asus India
Amit Boni, General Manager and Head of Country Operations, Motorola Mobility
Amit Gujral, Marketing Head, India, LG Mobiles
Antti Ohrling, Country Director, Rovio
Arvind Pani, Co-founder and CEO, Reverie Language Technologies
Kavin Bharti Mittal, CEO and Founder, Hike Messenger
Jonathan Bill, CEO and Co-founder, BillBachao.com
Jayanth Kolla, Partner with Convergence Catalyst
Akshay Aggarwal, General Manager, Operations for MediaTek
Nikhil Pahwa, Founder, Editor and Publisher, MediaNama
Shashin Devsare, Executive Director, Karbonn
Dinesh Prasad, Senior Director of Sales and Business Development, Qualcomm India and South Asia
BGR India’s Dream 500 Million Smartphones is presented by Gionee in association with Qualcomm. The other sponsors are Asus, Paytm, Ditto TV and Zee Business.
