You are talking without understanding supply chain. Typical lead time for a semiconductor component is two months. If you say they produce only upon receiving order, it is a joke.
They can handle 10000 requests and process in taiwan, hk. But they can't handling 1000 request?
If you pay attention to people who join, many are from china. Most of the People who reply in supportive of Xiaomi are from China. You can clearly observe when they talk against people who complaint. The language style, etc clearly indicates. I can get 1000 likes in 1 week for an individuals very easy then xiaomi gets 14K in a month is not so hard.
Customers are not fools. Here is a saying from Mahathma Gandhi
Hope Xiaomi understand what is the meaning of customer delight and how to retain a customer. If not it is matter of time Xiaomi goes to the drain.
Not every customer collected the 100000k phone. There is a long waiting period. Some as I am typing now haven't receive their phone. By the way, these ppl are willing to wait as the branding is top notch. It's the iPhone of the east.
Mdm.. pls read up on how xiaomi work in China.. they will only produce after receive order. Ppl in China Que up for 3months before they can get their phone. This is the reality. The boss of xiaomi need to use wits and tots and a huge amount of gamble to get xiaomi to be one of the large phone manufacturer in China.
Xiaomi earn when component becomes cheaper. The phone will still be 169 no matter what. After 3months component get cheaper but the customer paid up 3months ago.
Example, I pay in feb $169 which might cost $100 to build. My $169 goes to build phone for customer collecting in March which they also paid 3 months ago. The cost of the phone in March might be $80, When it is my turn in May to collect the phone.. the cost to build might be $70 which ppl in May have paid $169 to build my phone. my english is bad, I am sure u are able to understand.
Xiaomi uses future money to purchase component and manufacture phone. (This is actually a very risky strategy but it works. Have to respect xiaomi for that.) That is why there is always long waiting time.
Ever wonder how xiaomi earn? They uses future money to purchase component and build phone. Component get cheaper after a period. RRP remain the same. Wonder why dealer like mobile square cant get the phone? Why is the phone quantiy controlled so tightly? If xiaomi allow dealer to sell.. u will see price like $169 then 1 hour later $149 and 1 hour later $139. Is price war healthy for a brand? Xiaomi rather stick at RRP and sell it thru their own channel. They wont have enough quantiy too, they still have lots of backtrack order to fufiled.
How to get money in? Ppl like u who posted how disappointed will continue to bring them revenue. By the way.. the 14k page likes I am talking abt is xiaomi sg Facebook. If xiaomi have fans willing to go thru the trouble of helping to gain likes, it also show the brand consciences works.
For Singapore, if u are xiaomi, what will u choose?
1. Let us order unlimited quantity, but wait for months before we collect phone
2. Control our order limit and get the phone in time. Obviously it wont be 10000k phone.
Xiaomi chooses no 2 for us as they know we cannot wait. We will complain. So they will control our limit as their component needs time to manufacture and thus they will build phone for us base on the amount of component they have in stock. Did u realize they didn't report any quantity they sold. 雷声大，雨点小.
