The Question is how much stock did Xiaomi sell today in 5 seconds? Answer is less than 10,400 Units. That’s what Xiaomi imported in India on 25th July and that’s less than 10 percent of the demand (Actual stock might be lesser if Flipkart saved some for replacements from first sales day) Xiaomi has been aggressively celebrating its ‘5 Second Sale’, but that’s indeed not a cause for celebration.
It would have been wiser if Xiaomi had built an inventory before proceeding with sales. These flash sales which are soaring temperature nationwide are nothing new for Xiaomi. Just a couple of weeks back, 5,000 Redmi Note gobbled up within 75 seconds in Singapore, but yes, 5 seconds is still a astounding feet. Indian market is governed by sentiments and whether this flash sale model succeed in India or not will be determined in next 2 to 3 weeks. Such fan lashing was also seen for Moto E and Moto G initially, But Xiaomi’s case is different. There are still a hundred thousand buyers willing to pay for Xiaomi Mi3 and the next stock can’t be expected to extend beyond 10,000 Units. Xiaomi is on thin Ice. — Hugo Barra (@hbarra) July 29, 2014 Yes angry fans will be cussing, but at the end of the day, Xiaomi Mi3 is a great phone to buy. Will Mi3’s greatness triumph over the widespread frustation due to stock crisis? That remains to be seen. Xiaomi sells its smartphones at cost and with time as the component cost decreases, the company earns its profit. The launch cycles are also kept long to recover R&D cost and thus it doesn’t manufacture in bulk which explains the stock crisis. However, disrespecting customers will definitely affect Xiaomi adversely. How well the flash sales model works in India will be clear after initial 3-4 sales week. In today’s sale registered users were notified to keep the Mi3 page open before the start of sales and several buyers got the message “Not registered” just when the sales started. This smells like foul play and some users are convinced that flipkart’s software automatically added a few registered users at random which might or might not be true. If true, Xiaomi Mi3 Flash sales is more like a lottery and you just login and see if your luck favors you next time.
