Xiaomi has announced that it will be shutting down its offline stores scattered across various cities in China. This was contained in a press release by the tech giant earlier today. The post cited the need to assist the epidemic prevention and control work in China, in relations to the Coronavirus outbreak that is currently ravaging the country. The closure will become effective from January 28. The stores will reopen on Monday, February 3 but there could be an extension depending on the prevailing situation. The company indicated that fans will be notified if there is an adjustment. Here’s a transcription of the press release below.

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“Affected by the epidemic situation, in order to cooperate with governments at all levels to do a good job in epidemic prevention and prevention, to comprehensively and actively respond to national policies and measures, and also for the health of your family and friends around us, we carefully decided:

1. The Xiaomi House nationwide will be closed from January 28, 2020 (the fourth day) to February 2, 2020 (the ninth day). It will resume operations on February 3, 2020 (the 10th day), and it will be notified separately if there is any adjustment.

2. If you need to purchase products, please purchase them on Xiaomi’s official website or Xiaomi Mall app. The logistics will be delivered normally. Due to the holidays, the logistics aging will be delayed. Please forgive me.

3. If you need after-sales service, please dial 4001005678. Xiaomi will provide free postal service after the sale.”

Thankfully, the company also disclosed that fans can continue to purchase their favourite products via the company’s online channels (Xiaomi Mall app and Mi.com). The shipping will be handled promptly as usual but may encounter some delays as a result of the New year holidays.

China has been battling with a strange virus belonging to the Coronavirus species that has already resulted in the death of 80 persons in Wuhan where it emanated from. Almost 2,800 cases have been confirmed across China.  The government has also placed 15 cities with a combined population of over 57 million people under full or partial lockdown. Wuhan has been effectively quarantined with major flights and long-distance transport systems suspended for the foreseeable future.

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Xiaomi holds a Guinness World Record for the most stores opened simultaneously with its feat of opening over 500 Mi Stores in India in November last year. The tech giant has now recorded another milestone even though it won’t upset the Guinness World Record. The company has reportedly opened more than 100 offline Mi stores in China.

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The opening of more retail stores is said to be part of Lu Weibing’s measures for offline channel reform since he took over as president of Xiaomi China on November 29. After proposing a dual-engine strategy and clear target plan, Xiaomi began focusing on the expansion of new retail channels and more on the cultivation of core customers. From the list of 100 stores opened this time, more than 80% are owned by third-party vendors.

As at today, the number of Xiaomi offline terminals has exceeded 6000 stores. As a reminder, Xiaomi opened its first Mi Store in China on September 12, 2015.

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Chinese tech giant Xiaomi has hinted of plans to open 2000  physical Mi Stores within the next three years. This was made known by the company’s senior vice president global, Wang Xiang in an interview with CNBC. Some of the shops will be opened in partnership with private investors while some others will be owned and operated by Xiaomi.

The decision to bring in investors is part of the company’s big ambitions to spread its tentacles outside China. The Xiaomi senior VP projects that in the next few years, the tech company will become a global player as they hope to enter almost every country. This is one good news for fans who have been yearning for Xiaomi’s physical presence outside China.

Xiaomi showed prospects when it first started shipping smartphones in 2010. The online flash sale model adopted proved to be an instant success and it soon got adopted by other companies. The inability to meet demand and a faulty supply chain both contributed to the decline in gross sales over the last few years. But the company is poised to reverse this trend by expanding into new markets and going offline. Going offline entails opening up 1000 physical stores in different Chinese cities by the year 2020. Already, the company has opened about 100 Mi Home stores in different Chinese cities and there are more on the way. This strategy is meant to complement the e-commerce strategy already in effect.

The Xiaomi VP also disclosed that the company is looking to focus more on China’s South East Asian neighbours like the Philippines and also eastern Europe. Already, Xiaomi has made inroads into countries like Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, and even has manufacturing facilities in India and Indonesia.

Read More: Xiaomi’s 100th Mi Home Store in China Opens

Apart from smartphones, Xiaomi will also be making available its wide range of Smart home products outside of China like its smart fitness bands, smart scooters, smart air purifiers, water purifier, internet-of-things and more, all in a bid to expand its ecosystem and shore up its revenue. Already, the results are looking promising, as Xiaomi disclosed last week that it recorded more than 23 million smartphone shipments in Q2 2017. The ultimate target is to ship more than 100 million smartphones next year and with a wider presence as well as improved production, that figure could well be surmounted.

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Xiaomi has again hinted that it is planning to change from its traditional online sales method to incorporate offline sales via retail stores within the next couple of years. The company has seen declining sales this year occasioned by a poor distribution network for its smartphones which it sells only by online sales presently.

This is not the first time, though, the company is hinting at a shot at the offline sales channel few months back and it came from no less a person than Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun. Lei Jun had disclosed that the company will be building over 1000 physical stores over the next couple of years which are to be 250 square meters large and expected to make monthly sales entering 50 million Yuan based on findings that physical stores make as much as 1.43 million Yuan daily. Lei Jun left off without being specific as to the time frame the plan would come into effect.

However, Xiaomi has come out to reveal that it would be incorporating the offline sales channel fully by 2020. The innovative start-up also hinted that it would build 1000 stores between now and 2020. A Xiaomi spokesman has in this regard disclose that the offline sales expansion plan becomes necessary because the Xiaomi barand has become a household name in China and the new line of sales would increase the company’s visibility in the market. Apart from smartphones, Xiaomi also has a host of gadgets, IOTs in its kitty such as TVs, drones, air purifiers, rice cookers, bluetooth speakers, smart scooters, and smart bikes. But most of these devices are hardly available in the market.

Xiaomi will have the likes of OPPO, Vivo and Huawei to content with in this new channel which will cost the company more revenue. OPPO attained its present success by aggressively charting the course of selling its phones offline and is now ranked second in the domestic mobile phone market in China. This new offline channel will allow Xiaomi fans and prspective buyers to have a feel of the company’s latest devices before buying, something not possible presently. Whatever cost the company would incur by this new method would likely be mitigated when sales starts spiking due to the ability of more customers to get to feel and buy the company’s often innovative phones and smart gadgets easily. Hopefully, this would get the company to the top of the charts where it rightfully belongs.

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