Barely heard of a decade ago, “media influencer” has become a household term and a promising profession among Indonesian millennials.

Unlike conventional jobs, making it big in this one requires the new media proficiency of business-minded kids from the smartphone generation.

When she started posting travel articles and photos on her social media accounts four years ago, Kadek Arini didn’t imagine that her new hobby would become a rewarding profession.

Now, the 25-year-old is proud to present herself as a professional travel blogger.

Unlike the “conventional” writer or journalist, her title is “social media influencer,” a catchphrase unknown 10 years ago, when social media were in their infancy.

The new profession was born out of the growing popularity of the social media.

As users spend more time in social media, advertisers started to spot social media users who have huge numbers of followers or “friends.”

These users – who could be a traveller, a makeup artist, a stay-at-home mom who loves cooking, a teenager or an office worker who likes to make parody videos – upload their works to social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook or Twitter.

Their large following is the result of regular postings and interesting content that viewers outside their close social circle.

Once the good stories, nice photos and funny videos have attracted many followers, then comes the law of attraction; brands will naturally also come to advertise their products.

Unlike in the conventional media, where celebrities are hired to promote certain products, in the new media advertisers need the influencers to give their promotional testimonies and favourable personal opinions about the products.

Kadek decided to quit her regular job as an interior designer in 2013 and shifted career to a media influencer, knowing she could earn enough with her hobby.

Recommendations and testimonials as a way of promotion are, in fact, a traditional method of advertising. Influencers are hired because they can represent the opinions and recommendations usually given by our close social circle.

According to sproutsocial.com, an online social media management specialist, 74 per cent of consumers rely on social networks to guide purchase decisions.

Some influencers diversify their business after achieving social media celebrity status.

Elizabeth Christina, a makeup artist and beauty blogger who owns @bylizzieparra with 122,000 Instagram followers, for example, launched her own beauty brand called By Lizzie Parra (BLP) last year. A signature product is lipstick.

“I rarely found lipsticks that fully satisfy me. Sometimes, I like the colour but not the texture and vice versa,” she said.

With her legion of followers and the reputation she commands, BLP lipstick sells like hotcakes.

Her company reached the breakeven point only three months after it was launched.

However, it turns out that the number of followers is not the only thing that makes the account owner a media influencer and thus attracts advertisements.

Baskoro Adiwiyono, the communications head of low-cost carrier Indonesia AirAsia, said the following size was important, but other factors, such as the owner’s engagement with followers, was equally determining.

“We sometimes pick an influencer who does not have many followers but they have a really good engagement with their followers,” he said.

AirAsia usually focuses on stories that can inspire their readers when hiring influencers to promote its products.

Besides posting pictures or videos, many influencers also reply to questions asked by their followers or take their advice to maintain good relations.

Such gestures are rarely done by celebrities groomed by traditional media like film or television.

The business continues to grow rapidly, along with the rising number of people who have smartphones, which are increasingly affordable, too. Indonesia AirAsia, for example, started to pay attention to social media in 2000 for its promotion but it only began to involve influencers in its marketing strategy three years ago.

“Regarding the portion of commercial programs, it is already fifty-fifty with conventional media,” Baskoro said.

However, he predicts that it will take time for social media influencers to take a bigger chunk of the commercials market from the more established industry, because they serve different purposes, and thus different audiences.

Many companies still spend most of their advertising budget on television.

Data analyst Nielsen reported that ad spending for TV and print media increased 24 per cent in the first quarter of 2016 to Rp 31.5 trillion from Rp 25.5 trillion a year earlier. And the main contributor to growth was television.

Ade Putri Paramadita, a consultant-cum-social media influencer, has the same prediction.

She said that, although social media influencers’ share keeps growing, they earn much less than the conventional media from ads.

For example, Kadek’s price tags range from Rp 1.5 million (US$112) to Rp 2 million per Instagram post. Her clients usually pay more than Rp 4 million for a three-minute video on YouTube.

Meanwhile, Lizzie charges between Rp 5 million and Rp 10 million per Instagram post. “I will ask for a makeup tutorial,” she said.

Many influencers who already have national celebrity status set much higher rates of Rp 10 million to Rp 20 million per post.

A more common way of making money in the digital era is running online shops.

Twenty-three-year-old Reva Nadya set up her online store @meinewelstore on Instagram instead of taking one of the 9-to-5 office jobs offered to her upon her graduation from Tarumanagara University, Jakarta.

“At first, I sold pocket bags from Bath and Body Works, but then, I finally decided to focus on selling Disney products,” she told The Jakarta Post.

Reva imports the products from various Disneyland stores in the US, Hong Kong and Japan. She purchases the items either from Indonesians living abroad or directly through the store websites.

“I also travel to Disneyland myself to buy things that are not available on the websites,” she said.

Although it usually takes more than a month before customers can get the products they fancy, people from across Indonesia are still keen to purchase from her virtual store.

Meanwhile, Lizzie charges between Rp 5 million and Rp 10 million per Instagram post. “I will ask for a makeup tutorial,” she said.

Many influencers who already have national celebrity status set much higher rates of Rp 10 million to Rp 20 million per post.

A more common way of making money in the digital era is running online shops.

Twenty-three-year-old Reva Nadya set up her online store @meinewelstore on Instagram instead of taking one of the 9-to-5 office jobs offered to her upon her graduation from Tarumanagara University, Jakarta.

“At first, I sold pocket bags from Bath and Body Works, but then, I finally decided to focus on selling Disney products,” she told The Jakarta Post.

Reva imports the products from various Disneyland stores in the US, Hong Kong and Japan. She purchases the items either from Indonesians living abroad or directly through the store websites.

“I also travel to Disneyland myself to buy things that are not available on the websites,” she said.

Although it usually takes more than a month before customers can get the products they fancy, people from across Indonesia are still keen to purchase from her virtual store.

Currently, @meineweltstore has approximately 28,000 followers on Instagram. She serves around 10 customers a day, booking average sales of about Rp 70 million (US$5,250) per month, or Rp 15 million in net profit.

As the social media sphere keeps developing, professional influencers may use multiple platforms to maximise their income. They generally earn more than employees of conventional companies.

Kadek, for example, says she can save between Rp 15 million and Rp 20 million per month, which is meager compared to more established online entrepreneurs.

According to socialblade.com, comedian Raditya Dika earns anywhere between S$3,200 ($2,288) and S$50,800 per month from his YouTube channel, a lot more than the salary of a mid-level manager.

Raditya, who has made a name for himself as a blogger and writer, touches various topics in his YouTube channel to entertain his 2.26 million subscribers, ranging from dining, video games, film reviews to small talk about trivialities like his kittens.

He regularly tops socialblade’s list of big earners.

YouTubers like Raditya rely on large numbers of views and subscribers to attract commercials.

But despite the large following, advertisers are reluctant to hire well-known YouTubers as media influencers and place ads on the platform’s videos the way they do on TV, because making a truly attractive video is way more complicated than creating still pictures.

“Video costs a lot more than still pictures,” Ade said. “Usually they prefer to hire a professional production house to produce commercials.”

This all may sound easy for the technology-savvy millennials, but obviously it’s no bed of roses. It requires a whole lot of dedication, skills and tenacity to be a successful influencer. There is no shortcut to success.

Buying followers or plagiarizing other people’s work are common in social media, but in the end, only the genuinely creative will make it. “We can tell who wins followers with good work from those who buy them,” Ade said.

Taxing media influencers is timely

Imagine a sponsored trip to Paris on a maiden flight, or to Hong Kong to thrill oneself gliding on an aerial tramway from the top of one hill to another in the famed Ngong Ping 360, or attending the launch of a beauty product before leaving home. These are just the kind of privileges that social media influencers, or endorsers, frequently enjoy.

Their job is to spread the word to their massive following about the virtue of the sponsors’ products or services. Some are so successful they become social media celebrities in their own right and fortunes follow.

After years of pondering, it has been decided that tax officials will someday be knocking on their doors. Since last year, the Finance Ministry’s Directorate General for Taxation has been busy readying the necessary legislation and infrastructure, although it stops short of setting a timeframe.

Once the regulation is in place, both monetary and in-kind benefits will be taxable. Hopefully, this will create a sense of justice among the millennial and traditional income earners – both individuals and legal entities.

The temptation is just too fat for the government to ignore. The Directorate General of Taxation has predicted that tax revenue potential from the endorsers could reach up to US$1.2 billion annually.

“We’re are still working on the database because without a powerful system, it will be hard to digitally administer the taxation,” the ministry’s revenue and compliance director, Yon Arsal, told The Jakarta Post.

The government has been seriously considering the plan since last year, considering the establishment of a task force on e-commerce, with media influencers being one of its targets.

It is also strengthening its human resources to handle the online business. “The business scheme will be totally different from conventional ones. We need a new approach to solicit taxpayer compliance,” he said.

The complex collection system has resulted from a lack of legislation. Most online businesses, especially those run by individuals, occur without proper government supervision. They may be shut down today but can reappear the next day, usually under a different name.

Benefits that media endorsers earn are not always in the form of cash but can be in kind. In that case it will require a more sophisticated system to assess and determine monetary values.

Ade Putri, an influencer on travelling and social activity, acknowledges that she often receives rewards in kind “worth a lot” in monetary terms. Often, it’s the sponsors who pay tax, which is deducted from the payments.

Although many endorsers admit that they do not pay income tax, they have expressed their willingness to comply with the future law.

Diwantara Anugrah Putra, better-known as Tara, and his younger brother Gema Cita Andika, who have been building their fame and fortune with their short movies and video tutorials on YouTube, support the government’s plan because all citizens’ income is basically taxable.

“I have no problem with that,” Tara, who once created an endorsement video for Hollywood film producer Steven Spielberg.

The brothers claim that they have paid all their taxes directly deducted from the advertisers who place ads on their YouTube channels called Tara Arts Movie, Tara Arts Game Indonesia, Tara Arts Network and Gema Show Indo, each offering different themes.

As an established online venture, their steady income comes from multiple sources, primarily YouTube ads and brand deals.

“Our income ranges from tens of millions of rupiah to hundreds of millions of rupiah a month,” Tara said.

But not everyone is happy with the government’s tax plan. Owner of Instagram store @mieneweltstore, Reva Ayu Nadya, argued that the policy would unnecessarily burden small businesses like hers that the state should support instead.

“I import merchandise from overseas; I have already paid import duties and taxes,” the 23-year-old woman, who sells products she buys from Disneyland theme parks across the globe, said.

Legislator Dave Laksono is an advocate for the tax plans. Although theoretically the government can use the existing income tax laws, the legislation lacks specifics when applied to online businesses.

“The future law should not only regulate taxation, but also other aspects, such as legal protection for the entrepreneurs,” he said.

While the online business seems lucrative, it has its own risks. Some have reported substantial losses after their accounts were irreparably hacked and had to create new ones and start their business practically all over again.

Perhaps next time Dave and his fellow lawmakers could conduct their notoriously extravagant comparative studies overseas, they could go to Singapore, which introduced similar taxes for media endorsers last year.

Banu Begum, a 38-year-old garment worker, leaves home at 7.30 in the morning, drops off her two daughters at a nearby madrasa and then walks to her factory a few kilometres away.

Work begins at 8 am; if she is late one day, Tk. 300 is deducted from her attendance bonus.

From 8 am to 1 pm, she folds clothes at a stretch, standing on her feet. Her target per hour is to fold 80-100 shirts.

“There is no room for error. If I don’t do it right the first time, I have to do it again, get scolded and lose valuable time. It gets so difficult sometimes, to do the same thing, over and over, and to stand for hours on end-my legs start giving in-but there is no rest,” says Banu. “If we go to the bathroom, we get a few minutes’ break. That’s all the rest our bodies are allowed.”

At 1 pm, she gets a lunch break for 30 minutes. General duty ends at 5 pm, but most days, Banu works till 8 pm.

“Some days, when demand is high, we work till 10 or even 12 pm,” informs Banu. “There’s no break in between.”

On average, she works between 11-5 hours every day-that’s excluding the household work she has to do for her family of four.

She wakes up at 5.30 in the morning to prepare meals for the day, wash clothes and finish other household chores; she goes to bed around 1 or 2 am, depending on how much ‘overtime’ she has worked, after putting away dinner, washing the dishes and prepping for next days’ meals.

When I ask her how she manages to survive with so little sleep and rest, she smiles wryly, and says, “What choice do I have?”

The concept of the eight-hour work day-a right guaranteed by our labour law and multiple ILO conventions-is not so much as lost on Banu, as circumscribed by the reality of her life.

As per the law, RMG workers can work a maximum of two hours’ overtime a day, with the average workweek not exceeding 56 hours.

However, according to a study by the Workers’ Rights Consortium, in Bangladesh, “workers report that an average workweek consists of 60 to 80 hours or more.”

As per another study by the Alternative Movement for Resources and Freedom (AMRF) and the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), garment workers work a minimum of 10 hours each day.

As many as 39.5 per cent of the workers reported working 13 hours a day or more.

There are widespread allegations by workers and labour rights activists that workers get paid an official wage-which includes their basic, other benefits and the legal overtime amount-and an unofficial overtime amount that is not recorded on their payslip or the paysheets that are presented to the auditors.

For instance, Banu’s payslip charts clearly what she received that month in wages and benefits in print.

However, there is a hand-written amount at the bottom that exceeds her total income.

There is no explanation of what this amount is. Banu claims that the hand-written amount is what she actually received that month and includes her overtime.

Banu’s neighbour, Motia Akhter, who works at a nearby factory in Ashulia and overhears our conversation, eagerly chimes in.

She explains that in her factory, things are done more “digitally”.

Apparently, workers who work overtime must go back to the gate at 7 pm and punch their cards to signify the end of the working day for official records, only to go back to work till 9 pm or 10 pm.

They sign a separate sheet afterwards, she says.

Workers further note that irregularities over payment of overtime, especially unrecorded overtime, is common.

The study by the AMRF and the CCC, quoted above, supports this claim, highlighting that 54 per cent of 243 respondents from different factories producing for the export market reported they had not been paid for their overtime.

With little to no bargaining power in many of these factories, in the absence of a functioning pro-worker trade union, workers are forced to accept whatever amount they get.

The overtime they work is supposed to be voluntary, but when you ask workers if they have the freedom to “refuse” overtime, they laugh.

For one, despite what the law states, overtime is considered mandatory in most factories, with supervisors, line-chiefs and managers frowning upon-if not castigating-requests to be let go early.

For another, why would workers refuse overtime, when every extra hour worked means an extra few bucks to supplement their meagre salary?

Take Rahela Khatun, for instance.

She lives in a small room in a house shared by six other families, with her two daughters. Tk. 3,500 – almost half her salary – goes towards paying the rent.

She gives Tk 2000 to her elderly parents, and spends roughly Tk 1500 on her children, including Tk 800 as school fee. Another Tk 2000 – 3000 is spent on food.

“You tell me what that leaves me at the end of the month!” exclaims Rahela.

“Some months, when my children are sick or my parents need more money or there is an emergency, I have to resort to borrowing from my sister or neighbours. This is why I work as much overtime as I can. If I don’t work at least four hours overtime each day and some weekends, there is no way I can make ends meet.”

Given that the current minimum wage in Bangladesh the second lowest among the top ten apparel-exporting countries in the world (ILO 2014), it is no surprise that workers have to toil for hours on end, at the cost of their health and happiness, to just get by.

Yet, demands for higher wages are met with resistance, albeit violence, from the owners and the state, as evidenced by the crackdown on labour in Ashulia last December.

With the cost of living spiraling out of control with each passing year, workers have little choice but to learn to sustain themselves on 4 or 5 hours sleep a day, working non-stop for 12-14 hours.

Recreation, and the promises of May Day and an eight-hour work day, remain, to them, but a distant dream.

The people set afloat by the flash floods of the haor areas are not blaming their luck-or some supreme being.

The only omnipotent force they are naming is far nearer, in the Sylhet metropolis and goes by the name of the Water Development Board.

They were supposed to build embankments before the rains came. They did not.

This allegation is definitely easy to believe once you drive a few kilometres away from the tiny provincial town of Sunamganj and see the water.

The water stretches on as far as the eyes can see, brilliant in the summer sun. Calmer towards the mainland, crashing in waves the deeper into the haors you go.

Where are the dykes the government doled out crores to reconstruct?

The Star Weekend could not independently verify the total budget allocated, but documents obtained show that the Water Development Board floated tenders worth Tk. 48 crores 49 lakhs at least, to contractors, solely for the purpose of rebuilding the dams.

Mohammed Siddik Ali, a farmer of Tahirpur Upazila, had waited for the promised dykes before he realised they weren’t happening, and picked up the shovel himself.

He lives in Shonir Haor. According to the budget documents we got, contractors in Shonir Haor were allocated at least Tk. 1 crore 60 lakh for dam reconstruction in five places.

Three contractors, Messrs Goodman Enterprise, Shamsur Rahman and Messrs LL Contractions, were hired to do the job.

The projects were being overseen by two union parishad members at least, who were paid Tk. 20 lakhs in total for it, according to a document signed by the executive engineer of the board.*

Shonir Haor is completely under water.

“I got together with other villages and patched up one of the dams. We were donated sandbags by the leaders of the locality,” describes Ali.

It didn’t work.

Men with shovels and charity sandbags did not ultimately have the kind of impact that infrastructure construction done by the local government could have had.

“Our dam held until four days ago,” says Ali. He pointed towards the blue expanse. “My land is over there. My rice is ruined,” he laments.

When I meet Siddik Ali, he is one of the hundreds of farmers drying out rotten, soggy rice on the road that leads into the heart of Tahirpur.

With the fields under water, all the farmers crowd onto the tarmac, leaving barely enough space for the occasional three-wheeler CNG to pass through.

It is a typical scene of the harvest season, but the only nobanno being brought home is green and tart, damp and of no value. Not to mention inadequate in quantity.

“We are trying to sift out the kernels which are somewhat edible from the ones which are absolutely rotten,” says Ali.

He adds that he lost around 60 per cent of his crop. Ali’s condition is still better than those who live deeper into the Shonir Haor.

Mohammad Kala Miah and his son are having to haul their rice from under the water.

Balanced on a slim dinghy, the two hurl a five-pronged plough into the water. The end is tied to a spool of rope, to be towed in like a harpoon.

Kala Miah rakes up strands of putrid rice stalks.This then is taken back to land, dried and sorted out.

“I don’t even know how much I will be able to salvage. Probably less than 10 mons (400kg) when it is usually six times that amount,” he says.

The market prices for a mon of rice is as low as Tk. 500 right now. This was the last harvest before monsoon comes and all the lands are under water until fall.

Unlike many other places in the country, the wetland haor area is an ecosystem where an annual harvest of Boro rice is all that most farmers have to subsist on.

Sajima is a young mother of four, who now lives in an islet surrounded on all sides by water.

The flood waters have eaten their way to the very brink of the bank that her corrugated tin house stands on, and are gently lapping away at her back wall.

Even in February, this area was a village called Nisimpur. Now there is barely any land.

“I doubt I’ll get even 10 mons of rice this year. I got around 100 mons last time,” she explains.

She works as bonded labour, and will have to give half of whatever meagre amount she gets to the owner of the land.

The strip of earth her home stands on is the only land she owns.

“We’ve been selling all the cows because there is no grass to graze, and there is no hay to feed them,” she says.

She still has one medium-sized calf left and I ask her what it has been eating.

“Rotten hay. It hates the taste of it but hunger forces it to eat. Just like hunger is making us eat the green grains of rice,” she adds with a laugh.

I ask her what she will do if the water floods her home.

“I’ll go take shelter in the school. The waters come in every year-it’s just that I can usually harvest my rice in time,” she shares.

Petty politics, local corruption costing lives

The same sentiments were echoed by the upazila chairman Kamruzzaman Qamrul.

“The corruption with dam reconstruction happens every year and they can never get the job done in time. The contractors usually do enough to go through the harvest season, and then wash their hands off the job,” he rants.

“The only reason they stick around that long is because they too own rice fields. As for the flooding of homes-theirs are all further inland, so who cares about the poor farmers of the haors?” fumes Qamrul.

His upazila has 23 haors and all them are under water.

According to the documents received by The Star Weekend, in this area, Naluar Haor were supposed to get a Tk 2 crore 8 lakh makeover.

This is the highest amount of money given out to contractors in any of the haors of Tahirpur.

Shanir Haor comes right after, followed by Matian Haor with a Tk 1 crore 54 lakh allocation for contractors.

The Matian haor reconstruction was being done by ten union parishad members heading committees which were given Tk 1 crore 20 lakh in total for operative costs.

“I myself rounded up villagers to build dams for a month. I gave Tk 2 lakh out of my own coffers, the District Commissioner gave Tk 4 lakh and Tk 3 lakh was drawn out of the emergency budget of the upazila. The rest were donated by influential people of the area. In total we had Tk 15 lakh worth of sandbags,” he claims.

Qamrul identifies with the BNP and finds it in his interest to fill up the gaps left by the politicised, corrupt local government.

His political affiliation, however, may be the very reason why he could not supervise any of the dam reconstruction work being done.

“I often do not get direct information about what kind of dam reconstruction is done where and who is doing it,” he alleges,”Just that other day, somebody secretly sent me a document showing that a committee headed by a union parishad member was supposed to do a dam reconstruction worth Tk. 14 lakh 50 thousand, that I had no idea about.”

His claims are not entirely unfounded.

A lack of transparency combined with politicised nepotism, spurred by a shared greed for corruption, seems to be the norm in these parts.

During the interview with him, the Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) and the Fisheries Ministry secretary walks into the premises to hold an ad hoc briefing for journalists and the locals.

After they leave, a frustrated, fuming Qamrul returns back to the interview.

“The UNO just told journalists and villagers that relief is being brought in, and will be doled out by Awami League men,” he says.

“Why do I need local cadres to give relief to my people? What are my upazila administration staff here for?” he exclaims.

The case is similar for the subsidised rice being sold in the markets by the Directorate General of Foods, he alleges.

The DGOF has been selling rice for the price of Tk. 10 per kilograms approximately, in the central market of the upazila.

Lines of hungry, weather beaten villages extend up to a kilometre.

“The rice is being sold in the village centre but not being taken to the villages deeper into the haors where people are marooned in their islets, often without boats. They are not involving us in the process and are not getting to know the real picture,” says Qamrul.

The DGOF do not have a proper estimate of the amount of rice that was needed.

Everyday 400 people receive rice from the village market outlet but there are thousands affected.

This brings us back to the real problem-the petty politics of local administrative representatives cost lives and livelihoods.

Rupbanu’s face is lined like newly furrowed earth. Her body is a sack of skin and bones.

“I woke up at fazr and came here. I did not even make the bed,” she says.

The sun was nearing the highest point of the sky when The Star Weekend was talking with her, and she is still standing in a line with no end in sight.

All her rice was lost in the floods.

“I was returning home from the bazar at 2 am last night after finishing work, and I saw people reserving spots in the line,” quips another relief-seeker.

Everyday crowds of hungry villagers return home empty-handed after a whole day wasted standing in line.

That is only those who have boats and could make it to the mainland where the rice is being sold.

Why was the work not done?

Ataur Rahman is a former contractor and he has a theory.

“The contractors have to fight a corrupt system from the get-go. It makes them think, they too can cut slack,” says Rahman. He now has a workshop in the market, where we met him.

“I once took up a tender to build a dam in Matian Haor. The work was worth the same amount of money as 32 mon of rice,” he adds.

Rahman uses the weight of rice as a unit of estimating money.

“I was asked to pay Tk 5000 to the Water Development Board for every mon’s worth of work I did,” he states.

Did he? “No, I did not, so they cut out 3 mon worth of money from me when making the final payment,” he asserts. He alleges that he even bribed the messenger Tk. 5000 out of pocket to let him off the hook for the clandestine payments.

Ready to tackle climate-change?

The attitude of the local government shows that the nation is ill-equipped to tackle the effects of climate change. The flash flood in the haors this season takes place intermittently every couple of years-with the last one being four years ago-and experts believe this will not be the last one.

A 2014 research by the Institute of Water and Flood Management of Bangladesh University of Engineering Technology (BUET) took rainfall measurements from 1961 to 2010 to examine the link between climate change and heavy rainfall.

They showed that rainfall intensity will increase in the future causing more flash floods.

When we leave Tahirpur around dusk, the farmers are still on the road, sifting the bad grain from the good.

The air is dank and sticky from the rotten harvest, giving off a smell that is the complete opposite of the musky scent of fresh hay.

That night, it rains again. It rains so hard the skies light up.

Xiaomi is now taking its offline stores to India – its biggest market outside China.

The first Mi Home store in the country is scheduled to launch in Bangalore next week, where consumers can experience a range of Xiaomi products.

Other countries that have Xiaomi’s Mi Home stores are China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The company sent out invites to the store opening.

That Xiaomi is serious about India is a foregone conclusion.

It has witnessed uninhibited growth clocking $1 billion (S$1.4 billion) in sales in just two years of operations in the world’s fastest-growing smartphone market.

It leads the pack of Chinese phone makers (Vivo, Oppo, Lenovo are the others) that have displaced India’s homegrown brands (like Micromax) from the top five for the first time. Xiaomi occupied 10.7 per cent of the smartphone market here, trailing only Samsung, as latest IDC figures reveal.

Its Redmi series has been a runaway hit with value-conscious Indians. Xiaomi sold over 2.3 million units of the Redmi Note 3 in six months, making it the most-sold smartphone through online-only channels.

With the Mi Home store now, Xiaomi stands to bring itself a tad closer to its Indian consumers. One can walk into the ‘experience’ zones and soak in the Xiaomi ecosystem, from phones and mobile accessories to fitness bands and air purifiers.

It is not clear whether the Mi Home stores would double up as points of sale too. Xiaomi, in fact, is looking to ramp up its offline sales in India, targeting a quarter of its revenues from this channel.

Read the full article here.

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