Flipkart sells 40,000 Xiaomi smartphones in seconds in flash sale
03 Sep 2014
Most people looking to pick up a Xiaomi's low-priced Redmi 1S at its flash sale on Flipkart yesterday were in for a disappointment, The Indian Express reported.
Of the 40,000 Xiaomi Redmi 1S units that were on offer in the first flash sale - 2,000 were available to Flipkart First subscribers yesterday while the remaining 38,000 units were up for sale today.
According to a tweet by Xiaomi's global vice president Hugo Barra, 40,000 units were sold within 4.2 seconds today, though two points need to be noted.
Firstly, 38,000 units were available today and not 40,000 and secondly many users pointed out how could a simple click take 4.2 seconds given the rush.
The Redmi 1S offers some amazing specs at the price of Rs5,999, many buyers therefore, did not mind spending another Rs500 to become Flipkart First subscribers to grab the newly launched smartphone.
However, despite being the online retailer's first priority customers, many were not lucky enough to book the Redmi 1S on both the dates.
The smartphone will now go on sale for the second time on Flipkart on 9 September from 2 pm onwards, and the registration window for the second flash sale would be open from 2 September to 8 September midnight, Jagran Post reported.
The Redmi 1S is the first phone of the Redmi family to be made available in India and offers the best quality and user experience at an affordable price.
The device comes with a 720p HD screen, an 8MP camera that delivers superfine quality images, great battery life and a range of software features.
The dual SIM Redmi 1S comes with a 4.7-inch display, 1.6 GHz quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB internal memory (expandable upto 64 GB), 8MP rear camera as also a 1.6MP front camera.
The ''Apple" of China, as the handset is called, is one of the latest entrants in the multi-billion Indian smartphone market, and follows a number of Chinese firms like Oppo and Gionee.
India is the fastest-growing smartphone market globally for which growth by research firms like IDC has been pegged in double- and triple-digits.
IDC data showed that the smartphone market in India was up 84 per cent in the April-June 2014 quarter to 18.42 million units from 10.02 million units in the year-ago period.
The market was dominated by Samsung with a share of 29 per cent, followed by Micromax 18 per cent, Karbonn 8 per cent and Lava six per cent in Q2 2014.
