Honor is currently working on strengthening its offline layout and offline distribution channels after becoming independent from Huawei. The company is expanding the number of its physical retails stores and has already raised the number since September.

According to a TechSina report, Honor has already opened multiple new stores across its home country, China. The new retail stores are available in regions like Chengdu, Lanzhou, Wuhan, and Xiamen, and will soon also include other regions as well. Furthermore, it is also reported that the Chinese budget smartphone maker has even been working on two new Honor experience stores, which will open sometime in December 2020.

Editor’s Pick: Vivo V20 Pro 5G with 44MP dual selfie cameras, 64MP triple cameras and Snapdragon 765G launched for Rs 29,990 (~$407)

One of the experience stores will be in Chengdu Vientiane City while the other will be in the Nanjing Gemdale Plaza. A third Honor experience store is also slated to open in January 2021 and will be in Taiyuan. This showcases the company’s accelerated focus on offline channels that began back in 2015, and as of the end of 2019, there are more than 2,300 offline Honor stores in China.

Back in July 2020, Zhao Ming, Honor President stated in an interview that the the company’s offline sales had surpassed its online sales for the first time in the previous six months. For those unaware, Huawei sold Honor to Zhixin New Information Technology Co. Ltd. in November. Now, it seems that Huawei’s ex-subsidiary might become its rival in the Chinese smartphone market, with its recent aggressive push towards offline sales.

UP NEXT: Samsung Galaxy S21 series could be cheaper than S20, Galaxy Note line again speculated to bite dust

The post Honor strengthens its offline channels after independence from Huawei appeared first on Gizmochina.

Various Chinese smartphone brands have found great success in India. The Southeast Asian nation has been a big market for these companies, and now, a Vivo official has stated that the company considers India as a critical market and plans on opening over 100 exclusive stores in the region within one year.

Nipun Marya, Director Brand strategy, Vivo India, recently gave an interview to the BusinessInsider, regarding the year, the company’s future plans, and growth strategy for 2021. The senior official stated that 2020 had been a “difficult year,” but they “are seeing that the industry has seen a reasonably good recovery when it comes to sales. And we are seeing good growth, about 25% over last year during the festive season.” However, the Chinese smartphone maker is still expecting “single digit de-growth this year.”

Editor’s Pick: ZTE to announce ‘something big’ tomorrow, might launch a new smartphone

Marya further added that Vivo has plans to expand its offline presence in the region by opening various exclusive and even experience stores. He said that “Currently we have around 450 stores. We are planning to open up more than hundred exclusive stores within the next 1 year.” This move would be crucial for the company as the bulk of its sales comes from offline channels.

Furthermore, the Vivo executive also said that “non-metros [Cities] are leading growth and that’s also true in the case of Vivo. Metros still remain in absolute terms the largest market, but in terms of growth percentage, it is certainly coming from non metros and that remains true for us.” In other words, while major cities are still the largest market in the country, the smaller towns have shown a higher potential for growth. He further added that, “We are manufacturing all our phones here but after the center comes up, we will also design the phones in India. Its an extremely important market for the brand and how importantly we take the market can very well be seen from the kind of investments we have done here so far.”

UP NEXT: Bittle- A Palm-Sized Robot Dog, Introduced by Indiegogo has Raised more than $600,000

The post Vivo to open over 100 new stores in India to expand offline presence appeared first on Gizmochina.

The Realme Smart TV is now available for purchase directly from 1,250 offline stores in India. Both the 32 inch and 43 inch variant are available and arrives months after exclusive online sales via e-commerce giant, Flipkart, and its own official website.

Realme Smart TV runs on Android TV and features a quad speaker system. The TV also supports HDR 10 and arrives with Dolby Atmos as well. The offering from the Chinese brand arrives to compete with the likes of Vu, TCL, and Xiaomi in the region, with the offline sales being announced earlier this week. Notably, the 1,250 offline stores that sell the Realme Smart TV are a part of the ‘Royal Club,’ which is a privileged club made to boost the company’s branding in the country.

Editor’s Pick: Realme RMX2176 key specifications leak reveals 6.43-inch OLED display, 64MP quad cameras, 4,300mAh battery and more

The 32 inch variant is HD ready and features a 1,366 x 720px resolution, while the 43 inch variant features a Full HD panel (1920 x 1080px resolution) with 400 nits of maximum brightness. Under the hood, a 64 bit MediaTek processor powers both models along with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. The smart TVs also feature pre installed apps like Amazon Prime Videos, Netflix, and YouTube.

UP NEXT: Apple iPhone 12’s A14 Bionic could arrive with a 40% increase in CPU performance over the A13

The post Realme Smart TV is now available in 1,250 Offline Stores in India appeared first on Gizmochina.

Offline smartphone retailers in India have accused the industry giants, Xiaomi, and Samsung of bias. They claimed that the Chinese and South Korean vendors have diverted a majority of their devices’ stocks to the online channels to avoid giving margins to physical stores, thereby, making it difficult for them to maintain a profit.

The offline vendors said that Samsung was not maintaining price parity, particularly for its mid range Galaxy M series, namely M21 and M31 models. Reportedly, the Korean smartphone maker is selling these smartphone models at more affordable rates on online channels, which in turn, is hampering the offline sellers’ business. Furthermore, Xiaomi is also accused of favoring the e-retailing sector as it is apparently supplying more stocks to its online partners and significantly reducing supply to offline channels.

Editor’s Pick: Samsung Galaxy A71 to launch in USA this week as the cheapest 5G smartphone

The reason for this is most likely profit for Xiaomi, along with customers’ preferences. According to a Xiaomi spokesperson, “The biggest reason for the increase in online sales is the comfort of door-step delivery which gives the informed consumers a sense of safety, without having the need to step out.” This holds especially true now of all times as the world is suffering from the Coronavirus pandemic.

A leading Indian offline retailer said in a statement that, “only Vivo has been consistent when it comes to maintaining stock supply. Even Oppo brought new stocks via imports for new models. They are supporting us but even their margins have come down.” For those unaware, due to various issues in raising production capacity back up to 100 percent in India, various vendors, especially Chinese companies, have been importing newer models to India, which has raised cost as well. The viral outbreak is affecting various manufacturing sites and their reopening. Thus, the imported smartphone arrives at a higher cost due to import duties.

UP NEXT: Apple’s foldable iPhone features two separate panels connected by hinge

(Via)

The post Xiaomi and Samsung accused of favoring online retailers by India’s offline sellers appeared first on Gizmochina.

OnePlus is looking to expand its offline channels for sales of its electronic products like smartphones and more. As of right now, the company has already opened up about 200 physical stores in China.

Back in November 2015, the Chinese company had issued an announcement that it was closing down its 45 OnePlus experience stores across the country. The move was made to further grow its online channel and reserve its limited finances at the time. Back then the company had only offered 3 smartphone models with which it could not sustain due to it cutting into the OEMs profits.

Jumping forward to now, the company has seen great success with its e-commerce approach. A notable example is the Indian market where its handsets were well received and even became a top runner in the premium segment in recent times.

Editor’s Pick: OnePlus 8 Pro leaked hands-on image reveals 120Hz selection option in Settings menu

Earlier today (20th January 2020), Pete Lau, the CEO and Co-Founder of OnePlus, stated that the company has over 200 offline stores, which include its experience stores and even authorized sellers, with more expected to arrive soon after. These stores will include, and are not limited to, smartphones alongside the peripheral accessories like earphones and more.

The senior executive shared this news on Weibo, the Chinese microblogging website, through his official account. It is indicative of the company’s success and its plans on expanding the physical distribution of its electronic products. The expansion primarily focuses on the home country, China, but will also include overseas expansion soon after.

UP NEXT: Poll of The Week: Does a high refresh rate influence your purchase of a new phone?

The post OnePlus pushes offline strategy in China with over 200 stores appeared first on Gizmochina.

Xiaomi had hinted of plans to establish several offline retail shops in China in order to shift from the online sales only model which has been hugely successful but inadequate to help keep the company at the top. As a result, Xiaomi has for consecutive years lost out to minions like OPPO and Vivo in the ranking of the top Chinese brands in terms of sales.

To stem that tide, Xiaomi did set a goal of 1000 offline physical stores in China by 2020. The company kick-started the project by establishing a total of 51 stores across China last year and this year, it has hinted at plans to set up an additional 250. CEO, Lei Jun at a news conference held in Beijing on Monday reiterated this long-term plan and also disclosed this year’s business plan in that regard.

Lei Jun seems to have been caught up with the concept of “New Retail” made popular by Alibaba founder and Chairman, Jack Ma who predicted that the era of e-commerce would end in 10 or 20 years to give way to New Retail that combines online and offline sales and logistics services. Lei Jun thinks Xiaomi has found a feasible and highly efficient format for New Retail by establishing its own bricks-and-mortar stores rather than buying off small business chains like Alibaba did recently, spending over 2 billion yuan buying about one-third of popular supermarket chain Sanjiang shopping, based in Ningbo, Zhejiang province.

Read Also: Xiaomi To Focus on Offline Sales In the Future

Lei Jun also believes the prices of the products sold offline could still be kept down despite rising rent and labor costs by measures such as optimizing the manufacturing process and analyzing customers’ needs with big data. The era of offline retail shopping saw a hit at the introduction of e-commerce which made shopping an easy venture that can be contracted right from home. But it is turning out, a return to offline shopping is gathering momentum and it won’t be surprising to see that turn into a frenzy among the major players in the e-commerce sector. There was a time offline sales was king, later on, online sales model became the beautiful bride and now a blend of both looks inevitable. In the end, it is all a circus, with sales the ultimate goal. Unfortunately, Mr Lei Jun did not say if the company’s expansion plans involve setting up more physical stores outside of China, something a lot of Xiaomi fans yearn for.

(via)

The post Xiaomi’s New Retail Plan Bets Big On Offline Stores In China appeared first on Gizmochina.

Xiaomi yesterday announced that from 10 am today being 11.11, the Xiaomi Mix and Mi Note 2 would go on offline sale on the official Mi home stores in China. The company also disclosed that sales of both highly sought after devices would be on first come first serve basis. A long queue of persons wanting to buy either devices, especially the Xiaomi Mix was expected but what we didn’t envisage was that some fans would spend the night outside the Xiaomi official stores so as to be in good stead to grab one of the device.

According to pictures shared by Xiaomi’s co-founder and Vice-President, Wang Chuan, fans braced the winter cold to stay outside the stores in large numbers. Most of them came prepared, decked in winter jacket, some with plastic seats while other came with a hot water flask or teas cups to perhaps provide tea or coffee which would help drive away the piercing winter cold.

It wasn’t a male-only affair, though, as the females were not left out and a good number of them could be spotted in the long queues. Those that couldn’t find seats are either standing or seated on the bare floor. The queues are expected to surge as the day get by.

No doubt, this is another demonstration of the huge popularity of the two Xiaomi flagships both in China and even overseas. The Mi Mix and Note 2 had gone on their first and second flash sales and cumulatively the sales didn’t last up to one minute, gone in seconds on both occasions.

The post Fans Queue Overnight Just to Get the Xiaomi Mix & Mi Note 2 appeared first on Gizmochina.

Unlike the earlier notion, where in smartphone manufacturers were aggressively selling their devices online, the trend is slowly but definitely shifting towards the offline markets. Time and again, we have seen companies like OPPO, Vivo and Gionee take the lead in the domestic Chinese market, all thanks to its strong offline sales channels.

Now, Digitimes Research predicts that only Gionee, OPPO, and Vivo will achieve total shipment growth upwards of 15% in the 2017 global smartphone market. Given that these three companies have invested a lot in the offline market, the research goes on to show how important offline sales are for a smartphone company. For example, in China, Gionee has reportedly over 100K sales points, more than 70K special areas and over three hundred sales counters. The company exports to over 40 countries and has relationships with 8 national telecom carriers.

The research firm, Sino reports that the share of Apple, Samsung and other global brands in China declined to 13.3% in August this year as compared to 21% last year. In contrast, the share of Chinese smartphone companies in China increased from 79% to 86.7% during the same period, all thanks to the increased efforts in the offline sales channels.

As established markets saturate, the demand for smartphones in the future will come from emerging markets in South Asia, Southeast Asia, South America, Africa and similar regions. These markets are important for companies because more functional phone users are now upgrading to smartphones and offline retail outlets will play an important role in their growth. These Chinese companies could have an upper hand in these regions owing to their experience with the offline market. Even companies like Xiaomi, who was once focused only on online sales is slowly expanding its reach into the offline market as well.

The post Only Gionee & a Couple Other Chinese Brands Will Exceed 15% Shipment Growth in 2017 Predicts Digitimes Research appeared first on Gizmochina.