Only a week after China's leading electronics brand, Xiaomi, set up a Middle East office in Dubai, it has now also expanded business in Iran by teaming up with an official sales representative.
Asoshid, the Iranian company, presented a range of Xiaomi products from air and water purifiers to mobiles and tablets at an event last week, local technology news website ITIran reported.
Xiaomi is a privately-owned Chinese electronics company headquartered in Beijing, China. It is the world’s fourth largest smartphone maker. It designs, develops and sells smartphones, mobile apps, wearables, smart home devices and other related consumer electronics.
Present at the event were some of the top CEOs of Asoshid, namely Bijan Khiabani. Introducing Xiaomi's smartphones, Khiabani stressed the high quality of the products by comparing them to Apple's iPhone 6, while noting that the phones will be sold for almost half the price of iPhones.
The products are expected to hit the market in two weeks.
Detailing the company's plans for after-sales services, the official added that the company aims to sell the phones with two-year warranties.
"To speed up customer services, we plan to exchange faulty phones with new ones so that customers would not have to wait for repairs," he said.
The officials have announced that Asoshid is coordinating with Iran's first mobile operator, Hamrah-e-Avval or MCI, to distribute Xiaomi products in Iran.
Also present at the event was MCI's marketing deputy, Mehdi Atoufi, who announced that the two companies are working to offer MCI SIM cards in a package with Xiaomi products.
However, it is not clear yet if a deal has been finalized between the two companies or whether MCI will be the exclusive business partner of Asoshid for Xiaomi sales.
A new Iranian cloud-based data storage system was also unveiled at the event. Any customer purchasing a Xiaomi product will be given 5 gigabytes of free storage on the system named Ganjeh.
The official presence of Xiaomi in Iran is expected to increase competition in the mid-range smartphone market, including brands such as Samsung, LG and Huawei.
In a correspondence with ITIran, Kaylene Hong, Xiaomi's communications manager, confirmed the news.
"TASK is our official distributor that we authorized to bring Mi products into MENA, including Iran, and Asoshid represents TASK in Iran," she said.
At the International Exhibition of Electronics, Computer and E-Commerce otherwise known as Elecomp held in Tehran in December, a local firm named MiHamrah presented a range of Xiaomi products.
Earphones, headphones smart-bands, USB lights and blue-tooth headsets and mini-routers were all on display, technology website Zoomit reported.
The company also displayed Xiaomi health products, such as devices for measuring blood sugar levels and heart beats as well as a smart-scale.
However, smartphones—the product Xiaomi is most famous for—were not on display. At the time, MiHamrah’s representatives noted that the smartphones “are also on their way and will officially enter Iran in the near future”.
