Not so long ago, in mid-September, we announced that Xiaomi had organised a global partner Xiaomi 2017 Global Partners Conference event to welcome future partners. Hungary was represented at this conference by two national and international consortia, Ingram Micro and WayteQ Europe.
We recently visited WayteQ Europe in Budapest for a small informal chat about the Xiaomi community in Hungary, the current situation and the future.We were personally welcomed by Kornél Bánás and Péter Bánfi, in the WayteQ colours, at WayteQ headquarters on Gubacsi út in Budapest.
A konferencia lebonyolítása Wang Xiang vezetésével történt, de Xiaomi CEO is kivette részét és találkozott a meghívott delegációkkal. Az esemény fő vezérvonala az európai tagállamok vezető beszállítóinak megismertetése a Xiaomi export rendszerével és ismerkedés az anyacég globális exportért felelős kollégáival.
Wang Xiang in blue shirt in the middle, Kornél Bánás on the left, Péter Bánfi on the right, our interviewees are WayteQ's pillar members and direct Xiaomi partners.
We did not meet as strangers and not for the first time. We have had a good relationship as market building partners, and in 2013 the general public had the opportunity to meet Peter, who represented the company at the first MIUI Hungary meeting.
I first asked them how long they had been working on international expansion and where they were currently, and who was currently partnering with Xiaomi in Hungary. As they told us and as we wrote above, these two companies have signed an official distribution contract with the parent company in Hungary. Which means that the Xiaomi products they import come directly from Xiaomi's warehouse and are distributed to end users through resellers. It is no longer a novelty to find Xiaomi phones on the shelves of shops, until now, whoever could import them or imported them from another importer, but that is not an official source, regardless of the fact that the charges were paid and the Hungarian warranty was given. Because it is mandatory. But in the case of spare parts, it was already a question of who gets them from where. We know, we know, you can get them from GB, Ali, etc. sites, but unfortunately they are mostly not factory parts, but aftermarket. One of the big advantages of this contract is the supply and replacement of parts, which means 100% factory parts. What was previously out there, what the shops dared to take in was very few, a lot of other non-phone products appeared only in webshops whose origin could not be determined, were of low value or were sold on an intermediary site (Teszvesz, jófogás, etc.). From now on, almost everything that makes sense, that either does not need an application or is already available at least in English, but most of all in Hungarian, can be imported by both distributors.
At the moment, the situation hasn't changed and we shouldn't expect a huge improvement this year, as Xiaomi is making small steps but is on the right track. We already have two official suppliers this year, maybe next year they will move forward... but let's not get ahead of ourselves. One very good news about future products is that the next phones and/or gadgets will get global support sooner or later, so when the Xiaomi Redmi 5 and Note 5 come out, they will be ready for global service 1-3 months after the big bang in China, they will get B20 and Global. In the same way, the main guideline is also the smart home devices. In the first quarter of 2018, we can also expect the Mi Home system to go global. Let's hope that all the add-ons will be supported and that the MIUI team can get to work on the Crowdin interface, so that we don't have to enjoy the technical innovations in Hungarian.
The work is enormous, not to mention the responsibility. Kornél told me how the Xiaomi business partner world works, so they've got their work cut out for them. I won't go into it here, I can't, because this is all internal information. To meet such requirements will be a difficult task, but someone has to do it to satisfy the hunger of the Hungarian fan camp for Xiaomi.
If it's not your favourite way of shopping or your shop, don't worry, no one will close, there is already price competition, everyone is just doing it for the customers. But in the coming year you will see more Xiaomi products on the shelves of the biggest stores, discounts, promotions and mobile operators are starting to see that there is a big gap in the market that Telenor is trying to be the first to fill. Next year, the other operators will also jump on the big Xiaomi boat and offer better and better Xiaomi phones and accessories with an initial deposit of up to 0Ft, but with a higher monthly fee.
Let's get to the point. When will Mi Store be in Hungary? Not this year, as things stand. Since Xiaomi has no official plans to launch in the country, we can only expect a Hungarian entrepreneur to open a store in a shopping mall. And that's doomed. A brand cannot sustain a store with this kind of spending if the parent company does not support it. Anyone who knows a little about the mobile market and sees the dominant brands in our country, Xiaomi alone would not generate enough revenue to cover rent, wages, marketing costs, etc. It wouldn't be the first store to go bankrupt in a hurry, we've seen it before. Hungary is not yet ready for this. We will come back to this next year, when the brand will have an even bigger camp and the launch of new devices will generate the kind of purchasing power that will make someone see offline sales as an opportunity. Until then, online platforms will remain.
