Xiaomi’s India unit starts to make profit after three years

Xiaomi, China’s leading smartphone manufacturer, has turned profitable in its third year in India, highlighting an increasing preference for Chinese phones over those produced by local rivals.

Xiaomi’s India unit saw a 696% sales surge to Rs 83.79 billion ($1.3 billion) with a net profit of Rs 1.64 billion ($25.42 million) during FY17, marking the company’s growing clout in India. This reflects that Xiaomi has started to make a profit in the fiscal ended March 2017 as sales surge more than seven times, as reported by The Economic Times.

Just one year ago, the company saw its revenues at Rs 10.46 billion ($ 162.13 million) with a net loss of Rs 469 million ($ 7.27 million).

It didn’t come as a surprise that Xiaomi decided to roll out two low-priced models in India this month—both models under RMB 1,000—to further infiltrate the Indian market.

Oppo, another smartphone maker from China, is ambitiously making a foray into the Indian market as well and entered India four years ago. It earlier announced that its sales surged to Rs 79.74 billion ($1.24 billion) during FY17, marking a 754% growth from the fiscal year before. This means that Oppo has surpassed Sony and Micromax, the Indian mobile maker, after its rapid growth in sales. The sales growth of Xiaomi and Oppo reflects a further Chinese dominance in the Indian smartphone market.