On June 26, Xiaomi held its first ever flash sale of the Xiaomi Mi 3 in the Philippines through the online shopping site Lazada.
In just one hour, all 3,000 units were sold out! That’s a very impressive record but also left many fans wondering where they can purchase their own Mi 3.
Thankfully, Xiaomi scheduled another sale on July 4!
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| This is exactly the Xiaomi Mi 3 that you’ll get from Lazada – gray with the Philippine MIUI theme! |
This time, only 2,000 Mi 3 units will be up for grabs as Xiaomi is checking if Filipinos really want their products.
In other countries, Mi phones get sold out in 3-20 minutes. Xiaomi thought they can sell all 3,000 units here in the Philippines in under 15 minutes.
This might be due to several factors like the schedule of the sale. June 26 wasn’t a payday and 12 noon isn’t really an optimal time for an online sale. Lack of trust for online shops might a a contributing factor too.
The July 4 sale is more promising though. Xaiami also polled its Facebook fans with what time they want the sale to start. Update: It’s 11:00 AM!
If you’ve read my article about why I think Xiaomi isn’t a big threat to the local brands, I still stand by that. It will probably take the release of the more afforadble Redmi or another model before I can say that Xiaomi has grown into a big threat.
However, the local brands are definitely threatened already with Starmobile releasing a lot of its affordable smartphones like the Starmobile Up.
