Xiaomi today announced a partnership with Three UK thereby confirming its formal entry into the UK smartphone market. The company first entered the European smartphone market with its entry into Spain last year. UK’s smartphone market, however, is considerably bigger, and it is primarily dominated by premium smartphones like iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy lineup.
If you live in the United Kingdom, you will soon be able to buy Xiaomi phones on contract from Three UK. The partnership might also pave the way for Xiaomi to bring its other connected devices to the market eventually.
“We have been watching Xiaomi’s success from afar and are impressed with the huge range of connected devices that they currently offer,” said Three UK’s chief digital officer, Tom Malleschitz.
Xiaomi has not announced which phones it will be launching in the United Kingdom. The company will possibly be bringing the Mi A1, an Android One handset, which it launched last year. It could also be the Mi A2 which could launch later this month.
Xiaomi has met with huge success in India and China over the last couple of years with its budget Redmi series of handsets. Its Redmi Note 4 and Redmi Note 5 handsets, in particular, have done exceedingly well and sold millions of units in these two markets alone.
With the smartphone market slowing down in China, Xiaomi has been looking at expanding to European markets to help continue its rapid growth. Given the great price-to-performance ratio its smartphones offer, the company has the potential of changing the smartphone landscape of a country in just a few months.
[Via The Guardian]