Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu will launch India’s first Xiaomi-manufactured phone in Visakhapatnam on Monday, under the Make in India, Made in Andhra Pradesh programme. The confirmation comes as Foxconn announced plans with Maharashtra state to invest Dollars 5 billion in expanding its manufacturing operations in India, Reuters report. As low-end smartphone sales slow in its home country, Xiaomi is depending on other emerging markets for growth.
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“We’re super excited to announce the new Redmi 2 Prime – our first which is made in India”, Xiaomi said, on its official Facebook page for India.
[ August 10, 2015 12:28:00 ]. 6,999. This often happens just before a new version of a phone is launched, and just a few days ago we saw the Xiaomi Redmi 2 Prime appear on Amazon India.
In the past, Xiaomi has said it is exploring options for manufacturing in India.
The device will be available in India for Rs. “We started our discussions with the government in February and we have already started with the manufacturing”, Xiaomi Vice President Hugo Barra told reporters here. It also comes with both 4G LTE and dual-SIM support, but it also features microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 64GB).
The company entered India mid of last year and has managed to woo audiences with its nifty products and unique flash sales. Xiaomi, is being rebranded as Michigan. Jain did not share the existing or projected capacity, but said that it can be ramped up as per demand.
Given that Xiaomi smartphones are competitively priced, it is unlikely that Michigan smartphones would get cheaper with local manufacturing.
India is one of the fastest growing smartphone markets globally. The rear-facing camera on back is 13MP with a 5MP snapper in front ready to shoot selfies and handle video chats.
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Surprisingly, it is based on the Android 4.4.4 KitKat operating system but thankfully has 2 GB RAM and a 1.2 GHz quad core processor (Snapdragon 410).
