How Xiaomi is trying to push all the right buttons in Indonesia (#StartupAsia preview)

Xiaomi’s Hugo Barra at Tech in Asia’s Startup Asia Singapore 2014.

Xiaomi arrived at the right time in China, just as smartphones became commonplace and Chinese people sought out cheaper alternatives to products from HTC, Samsung, and Apple. That’s part of the reason why it’s now selling tens of millions of phones a year in China. Now Xiaomi is trying to replicate the same feat in several emerging markets where feature phones are finally dying out and cheap smartphones are in demand.

Xiaomi launched in Indonesia in August. Rather than selling its whole line-up, Xiaomi is focusing on the lower end of the Indonesian market by focusing on the Redmi 1S (pictured below), selling it for the equivalent of US$120.

What’s next for Xiaomi in Indonesia and across Southeast Asia? Hugo Barra, Xiaomi’s VP of international, will be onstage at Startup Asia Jakarta 2014 on day two of our event, talking about how Xiaomi is trying to push all the right buttons in Indonesia.

Rather like India (where Xiaomi also launched a few months ago), Indonesia is a sizable market with a lot of young people but a fairly low smartphone penetration rate. So now’s the time for phone brands to go after these fresh smartphone converts and perhaps secure a customer for life. Xiaomi isn’t the only Chinese brand chasing the market, and homegrown Indonesian challengers like Smartfren want in on the action as well.

Aside from asking Barra about Indonesia, we’ll be delving for insights into how Xiaomi operates and manages to grow so fast. Xiaomi is “bound to change the world in significant ways” that are “comparable to building the Android platform,” Barra explained to Tech in Asia the last time he was onstage at our event in Singapore in May.

Join us at Startup Asia Jakarta on November 26 and 27. You can use ILOVE15 for a 15 percent discount when registering. The code is valid until October 31, so sign up now.

See: 15 new Asian smartphone makers hoping to crush Samsung and Apple