China's smartphone giant Xiaomi on Thursday launched its new flagship phones to rival iPhone-6 at virtually half the prices and vowed to expand its India operations, brushing aside the legal challenges it faced over patent issues. Xiaomi's founder, CEO lei Jun formally launched two Mi Note phones which he claimed will challenge iPhone 6 and 6 plus in looks, size and in camera quality. The phones were priced at 2,299 yuan (roughly Rs23,000) for the 16GB model, while the 64GB model of the Xiaomi Mi Note will come at 2,799 yuan (roughly Rs27,900) far cheaper than the new iPhone models.
Though it was a global launch, the company, the world's third-biggest smartphone maker, has not decided yet when to launch these models in India. Instead, the Chinese company, which sold a million phones in India last year, will launch its most successful model Mi-4 as it has become highly successful in Chinese and other international market, Hugo Barra, Vice President Xiaomi, said.
The company which currently markets its phones in India through Flipcart e-commerce platform is planning to launch a platform of its own called Mi.Com, through which it plans to sell its phones and other products in India in the future he added. He also said India has become most important market next to China and would be expanding the footprints in future with more investments.