How Xiaomi enters and Leading Television Market?

Xiaomi borrows from smartphone experience to crack emerging Smart TV market :

Xiaomi, a company which doesn’t really have a long history of selling televisions, occupies the top spot in the Indian smart TV market. Much like its smartphone business, the brand has managed to retain its leadership position over the last nine consecutive quarters. As per Counterpoint Research, Xiaomi grabbed 27 per cent of the Indian smart TV market in Q1 2020, followed by LG (14 per cent) and Samsung (10 per cent).

Smart TVs started out as a pricey premium offering (around 2010) by dominant TV brands like LG, Samsung and Sony, which offered their own UIs (LG’s webOS and Samsung’s Tizen), instead of Google’s Android TV platform. The scenario changed (around 2018) as players like Xiaomi lobbed extremely price competitive offerings into the market.



Apart from the traditional TV makers, the market has seen several entries from players like TCL, OnePlus, Nokia, Kodak and Vu. Android TV (where Xiaomi is a leading player) currently accounts for 60 per cent of the smart TV market.

Close to 150 million of the 248 million Indian households have TVs. The current smart TV base stands at 15-20 million households, the flat TV base is at 50 million, and the remaining 100 million households still use the CRT (cathode-ray tube/box) TVs. Reports suggest that the smart TV penetration in 2018 was 18 per cent. It grew to 30 per cent in 2019, and 55 per cent in Q1 of 2020.

Apart from the choice of the brand and the ‘smartness’ factor, the key purchase drivers are picture quality, audio quality, and design. The prices start a little over Rs 10,000, and go up to a few lakhs. The pricing is influenced by features, like screen size, resolution, audio quality, design, etc.



Xiaomi has been selling TVs in China since late 2015/early 2016. At Xiaomi India, work on TVs started around the end of 2016/early 2017. The brand launched its first TV in India in February 2018. Xiaomi had shipped four million TVs in India till February 2020.

Eshwar Nilakantan, category lead, smart TV – Xiaomi, tells afaqs! that apart from access, two major changes that drove adoption are pocket-friendly data and regional language video content on platforms like YouTube and OTT.

“We were able to foresee the change, and the bet has played out well for us. Given the access to data, people wanted to consume content on the best and the largest screen available and that’s the TV.”million, and the remaining 100 million households still use the CRT (cathode-ray tube/box) TVs. Reports suggest that the smart TV penetration in 2018 was 18 per cent. It grew to 30 per cent in 2019, and 55 per cent in Q1 of 2020.

He shares an example from March 2018, when Xiaomi launched a 32-inch TV in India. “Our competitors were selling the same at over Rs 25,000. We could have launched at Rs 19,999, but decided to launch it at almost half the price at Rs 13,999. Now, over a period of 1-1.5 years, the competition has moved to that price point.”

Other than the price, Xiaomi extends all its non-hardware features across the portfolio. A key factor is its PatchWall User Interface that focuses on curating content from across its 23 content partners (OTT), instead of an app-first interface (unlike smartphones).

The brand’s ad film for the upcoming festive season highlights its dominant position, wide range of content options, while making a case for its nationwide base of 700 service centres. It also presents the common Mi TV remote as a unifying factor for Mi TV users (like a community thing).

Consumers were watching less on streaming because of the limited mobile data.

The consumers revealed that they watched less on streaming because of the limited mobile data. In India, data is cheap, but there is a limit on the daily usage. We worked with Google to create a ‘data-saver’. Since September 2019, consumers are watching three times more with the same data limit. It was launched as an exclusive Mi feature, and is now being introduced as an Android TV feature. Competitors will take over a year to match what we have to offer in the PatchWall experience,” Nilakantan reveals.

“Almost 80 per cent of Mi TV consumers have used a RedMi or Xiaomi smartphone."

The strong smartphone brand presence is also helping Xiaomi sell its TVs. “We see a lot of intersection between Mi phone and Mi TV users. Almost 80 per cent of Mi TV consumers have used a Redmi or Xiaomi smartphone. Customers or someone in the family might have used a Xiaomi phone.”