The midrange series from Redmi, Note series not only did prove a blockbuster series for Xiaomi, but also enabled access to rich features and stylish looks in the mass market of smartphones in India.
Criticism apart, we have to give it to the credit of China origin smartphone brands. Be it bringing in affordability, more powerful and performance driven smartphones or eye candy designs and looks, the Chinese smartphone OEMs pampered users with all their wish list and desires.
Xiaomi’s sub-brand and now a completely independent brand, Redmi is among such key enabling brands that led to a widespread adoption of smartphones in the country. Its note series, now 11th edition in vogue, has offered users a perfect balance between performance and style in the affordable segment. Being mid-range, this series should have been the 2nd smartphone of many users in their digital journey. But, several smartphones of this series like Note 4 and Note 6 were 1st smartphones of millions of users.
In its 8 years of journey in India, Note series of Redmi has sold over 70 million devices, many of them repeat customers who upgraded to a latest version only to better their experience. This is over 6% of the total smartphones sold during the period in India. That is a huge success for any individual series. The other similar successful series has been Samsung’s J series.
Note series from Redmi added several smartphone users to the base who upgraded directly from a featurephone to one of the note series smartphones. This was a big contribution to the digital landscape of the country, where in the Rs 6,000-12,000 range note series offered very power rich value for money experience to the users. The series became a trendsetter with many competition brands also following it and attempting to follow the game only benefiting consumers. Consumers got powerful smartphones with superb looks at an affordable price. It was a win from all directions for the consumers.
The Redmi note series continues to be an important smartphone series in India. As India embarks 5G journey with focus on mass adoption of the technology over next few years, a series like Redmi note has a critical role to play. It will continue with its track record and bring in over millions of users to the 5G ambit allowing them to experience the best of cellular mobile technologies that we have ever seen.
The smartphone market has been a ruthless market with its own peculiar dynamics. It has shown no mercy to anyone with several peak brands vanishing from the scene or reaching their lowest ebb. But in these conditions, a series surviving successfully for 8 years and still being in limelight speaks a lot about its relevance and significance among consumers. As an industry watch keeper, I would like to see many more such reliable and credible series and products coming out of the stable of many smartphone brands which gives consumers confidence in making the right decisions.
