Samsung won’t like it, but Xiaomi is coming to South Korea

One committed Xiaomi fan. Image credit: Xiaomi’s official Weibo.

China’s Xiaomi is now expanding in a country where the competition is particularly tough: South Korea.

The land of Samsung and LG isn’t an easy proposition, but Xiaomi isn’t doing it alone. The company has this month inked a number of deals with Korean suppliers and distributors to ensure that it will have a presence on the ground in the country.

Xiaomi has reached an agreement with Youmi and Koma Trade, making the two Korean companies the only official dealers of Xiaomi products in the country.

According to the Korea JoongAng Daily, the two partners will sell a variety of Xiaomi products, including battery packs, headphones, the Mi Band fitness tracker, and the Ninebot “hoverboard.” Neither company will sell Xiaomi phones, but they will be able to repair the devices and provide support.

The land of Samsung and LG isn’t an easy proposition, but Xiaomi isn’t doing it alone.

The paper says the partners are “small companies whose core business has become providing services for Xiaomi. […] Xiaomi selected the two companies since they can devote all their energy to the Chinese tech giant.”

In addition to building up its network in the land of Samsung, Xiaomi has also been working on ecommerce and online payments.

On March 8, news broke that Xiaomi’s smart TVs would be sold in Korea by ecommerce giants Gmarket and Auction.

Xiaomi has also inked agreements with a number of other Korean ecommerce marketplaces, including E-Mart, ZMI, and 11st. This isn’t exactly a surprise – Xiaomi has always emphasized ecommerce sales beyond its own website, with deals on Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao in China. But in South Korea, where the ecommerce market is a bit more fractured, the company is spreading its resources around.

The smartphone conundrum

None of those stores, however, are selling Xiaomi phones – yet. Aside from the occasional short-lived sale online, it’s rare to see Xiaomi’s smartphones for sale in the country, other than second-hand or from random Chinese importers. Ecommerce market KT briefly sold Xiaomi phones in January, but had to close the sale after just two days citing “legal issues.” It’s not clear if Xiaomi officially backed those sales.

But those “issues” haven’t scared Xiaomi away from the Korean market. Just today, the Korea Herald reported that Xiaomi has filed for a patent in South Korea for its Mi Pay epayments service – a phone-based service that can’t exactly be used with its battery packs or TVs.

Xiaomi certainly has smartphone sales in Korea on its roadmap.

The Mi Pay patent shows that Xiaomi certainly has smartphone sales in Korea on its roadmap. The Herald speculates what many have long expected – that Samsung and LG have put pressure on Korean retail companies and mobile carriers to keep Xiaomi out.