Mi 3 sells out again in seconds. Is India Xiaomi’s hottest market after China?

Xiaomi appeared out of nowhere and grabbed India by the throat, and the country is usually not too welcoming of Chinese products and OEMs. Interestingly, Xiaomi doesn’t even call itself by that name in India. It’s simply ‘Mi’.

Business started for Xiaomi in India on 15 July, when the China-based phone maker first accepted registrations for the Mi 3, the company’s flagship phone. A week later, the Mi 3 went on sale in India for the first time, selling out in a shade under 40 minutes.

But more was to come.

The second ‘flash sale’ that Xiaomi planned for India took place on 29 July, causing the servers of Xiaomi’s online retail partner Flipkart to crash yet again. Given that Flipkart is among the top, if not the top, ecommerce players in India, this was something Xiaomi could afford to be proud of.

In contrast to Xiaomi’s usual policies, the company did not reveal how many units it had put up for sale for the first two rounds of the flash sale, causing extreme reactions from the internet-savvy Indian lot.

Xiaomi patched up the holes and announced that the August 5 and August 12 sales respectively saw a total of 35,000 units of the Mi 3 being sold in India (15,000 + 20,000), giving buyers some much needed respite in the form of numbers.

True to form, the Mi 3 went out of stock yet again in a matter of 2.4 seconds on August 12.

Mi India update: 20,000 Mi 3 units out of stock in 2.4 secs @Flipkart @MiIndiaOfficial

— Hugo Barra (@hbarra) August 12, 2014

What makes the Mi 3 this hot?

Well, this isn’t going to be too difficult. The Mi 3 goes for a flat price of INR13,999 (US$229) in India, which includes shipping to the buyer’s doorstep. To top it all, Flipkart also accepts payments against cash on delivery (COD), a mode that’s massively popular among the non-credit card section of consumers in India.

India, Xiaomi’s second home?

Take all the private data you want, get me the damn phone