Xiaomi founders ride auto rickshaw ahead of today’s product launch in India

Xiaomi founders Lin Bin (left) and Lei Jun in an auto rickshaw in Mumbai this morning.

Xiaomi is a master at building excitement on social media ahead of a product launch. The Chinese company’s first premiere in India of a new gadget this evening needed something special – and fans were not disappointed. Xiaomi founders Lei Jun and Lin Bin riding an auto rickshaw (basically a tuk-tuk) did the trick.

Jeff Bezos shows the way

The Xiaomi founders are not the first to use local transport to ride into the hearts and minds of consumers in India. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos rode atop a truck in Bangalore to hand over a check for US$2 billion to Amazon India last year, one day after its local rival Flipkart had a billion-dollar funding round.

Affordable and smart

Lei Jun and Lin Bin also stepped out onto the streets, whipped out their Xiaomi phones and took pictures of the Victorian-era buildings in South Mumbai. If affordability was the subtle message of the auto rickshaw ride, this one was probably more direct – the cool pictures you can take with the newest Mi phone being launched this evening in New Delhi.

Today’s product is still a mystery for now. The ‘i’ in the invitation is intriguing. Apart from internet connectivity, It could be referring to the ‘i’ of India, which Xiaomi says is its second most important market after China, or it could be a hat-tip to the ‘i’ of the iPhone. After all, the invitation to its launch event today bears an uncanny resemblance to the invite sent out recently for the Apple Watch event.