Vivo announced that it had opened its 500th exclusive store in India earlier this week, and plans on taking the total to 650 by the end of next year. These stores are spread across India and cover more than 280 cities in the region.

The vast number of offline stores cover major tier 1, 2, and 3 cities as well, as per a BusinessStandard report. According to Nipun Marya, Vivo India Director Brand Strategy, “We are pleased to achieve this milestone of 500 exclusive stores in India. We believe that the offline channel is preferred by customers, as they like to experience the product before making a purchase decision. With customer centricity at the center of all decisions, we, at Vivo India, strive to offer our customers unique retail experiences.”

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Furthermore, the Chinese tech giant added more than 150 stores in India during the ongoing calendar year, despite facing challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The move from the company arrives as it strengthens its offline presence in the Indian subcontinent. Marya further added that, “The company plans to expand the network to over 650 exclusive stores by 2021, to offer an exclusively delightful retail experience to its customers.”

For those unaware, these Vivo exclusive stores offers customers a live experience of the smartphones and their features. In other words, people can experience gaming on these handsets, use virtual reality, and more in such stores. Vivo is a major player in the Indian market with a 28 percent total market share in the nation. This was backed by its strong offline retail channel, which the company plans on expanding even further.

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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.”

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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.”

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Vivo has set up a new experiential flagship store in Thane, a city located outside Mumbai and the Chinese technology company plans to come up with twenty more such stores.

The company described the experiential store as an outlet that offers dedicated VR (virtual reality), gaming and customer interaction zones, serving as a place with an immersive environment wherein smartphone lovers can check out Vivo-branded devices while experiencing top-end technology. On Saturday, Vivo announced its plan to introduce more than 250 exclusive stores this year in a bid to expand its already extensive retail network in India.

Keeping in line with that, the company has set up a new experiential flagship store in Thane, and will be launching 20 more similar stores across state capital and metros, providing an unparalleled customer experience in an offline retail store, Vivo noted in a statement. Vivo India Director (Brand Strategy) Nipun Marya stated, “Keeping customer centricity at the core, we at Vivo strive to offer our customers unique retail experiences.

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An important aspect of the company’s go-to-market strategy, the offline channel will continue receiving attention from the company. As part of the expansion plan, Marya said, the company will launch over 250 exclusive stores this year, taking the total up to 600.

Speaking about the experiential store, Vivo said consumers will be able to get their hands on gaming, VR devices, and check out the customer interaction zones that house Vivo products. Aside from that, smartphone enthusiasts will be able to experience Vivo’s top-notch technology in this engaging environment.

According to a report from research firm IDC, the Chinese smartphone maker has acquired the second spot (Xiaomi captured the first spot) in terms of total smartphone shipments with an impressive 18.8 percent share, which translated to 6.9 million units, in December quarter last year. Vivo grabbed the third spot behind Xiaomi and Samsung in a full-year tally.

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