Xiaomi and China Mobile launch new Redmi Note 4 with hopes channels boost sales

From left to right, Lin Bin, president of Xiaomi, Li Huidi, vice president of China Mobile and Lei Jun, founder of Xiaomi, poses for a picture at the launch ceremony of Redmi Note 4 in Beijing on August 25, 2016. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Previously, offline channels accounted for about only 30 percent of sales of this tech firm famous for its mainly online sales strategy.

Xiaomi shipped a total of 10.5 million of devices in the second quarter and 9.1 million in the first quarter of this year, according to IDC.

The Redmi Note 4, which features an all-metal body, up to 64G storage at a price of 1,199 yuan, the newly-released stable MIUI 8, its tailored Android operating system and Mi Pay, will be available at Xiaomi's own sales channels including mi.com and Mi Home starting on August 26 and will hit China Mobile's more than 20,000 sales outlets as soon as possible, said Lin Bin, president and co-founder of Xiaomi.

China Mobile's Li also said it will cooperate with 10 smartphone vendors to launch and promote 10 to 15 new products to expand its 4G users. The carrier now servers 430 million 4G users.

Lin also revealed that IDC data showed that the precursor, Redmi Note 3 had been well received in India as one out of every nine smartphones shipped online was a Redmi Note 3. The company has sold 1.75 million smartphones in the last five months and has seen a 72 percent year-on-year sales growth in this emerging market between July 2014 and July 2016.