On June 26, Xiaomi India dealers started using Made in India banners to cover Xiaomi's logo to shield themselves from nationalist sentiments. However, just a day later, Xiaomi's India action was "bombarded" by a local group.
On June 27, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) lashed out at Xiaomi's India marketing chief Manu Kumar Jain, saying his "Make in India" statements are politically insensitive and disrespect for the people of India.
CAIT accused Jain of trying to please his Chinese bosses by playing down emotions, "which is very different from the current spirit of the country".
CAIT argued that Jain's declaration of the "boycott of Chinese products" was confined to social networks hurt the feelings of millions of Indians. Coincidentally, Shree Das, Xiaomi's head of public relations in India, left the company in the wake of the Sino-Indian border conflict.
The latest "boycott of Chinese products" campaign in India is being driven by CAIT, which claims to represent 70 million businessmen and 40,000 industry associations. Previously, it had drawn up a list of 3,000 Chinese products that could be replaced by Indian-made goods.
One of their campaign goals is to reduce India's trade deficit with China by 13 billion USD by December 2021.
In an interview with CNBC-TV18 on June 24, Jain highlighted that almost all Xiaomi phones sold in the Indian market and most smart TVs are manufactured locally, with 65% of components sourced locally. And Xiaomi India is entirely Indian-led, creating jobs for 50,000 people, and 100% of Indian user data stays in the India.
"There are some so-called Indian companies who actually buy phones from China and then label them and sell them in India. We are actually more 'Indian' than them," Jain said.
Xiaomi India is more deeply localized than other Chinese brands and has even received personal investment from Ratan Tata, who is the former chairman of the board of Tata Group and one of India's most respected entrepreneurs.
In a tweet on June 24, Jain said that Xiaomi's Redmi Note 9 Pro Max was on sale Medium less than 50 seconds before it broke. He said the anti-Chinese sentiment was mainly confined to social media and had not affected its business in India.
Against the backdrop of tensions on the Sino-Indian border, the All India Mobile Phone Retail Association (AIMRA) had written to Chinese mobile phone brands to remind the latter that Note that some offline stores may be vandalised amid calls to boycott Chinese products.
Arvinder Khurana, president of the association, advised brands to get cloth or boards to temporarily cover the original brands logo, or simply remove the ad board for a while.
Four of the top five smartphone brands in India (Xiaomi, Vivo, OPPO, Realme) are from China .
According to data released by Canalys, in the first quarter of 2020, shipments of four Chinese brands account for nearly 73 percent of the smartphone market in India.ย
Third-ranked Samsung, which accounted for 18.9 percent of shipments, was the only non-Chinese brand in the top five.
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