Xiaomi doesn’t want people to wait for its smartphones anymore

Targeting sales of 80 million phones this year, Xiaomi is planning to end “flash sales” of small quantities of its best-selling products. The fast-rising company is China’s largest smartphone vendor, but its devices haven’t always been easy to buy. Xiaomi typically sells limited quantities of its smartphones once a week through its website, forcing customers to often scramble to place orders online. Chinese media have dubbed Xiaomi’s distribution model as a form of “hungry marketing”, that leaves consumers starving for more products. It’s also been the harshest complaint leveled against the company, said Xiaomi president Lin Bin on Tuesday. “People think the hungry marketing is deliberate, that we deliberately don’t offer open sales,” he said, while speaking at the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing. Once a small startup with limited funds, Xiaomi has been using the flash-sales model for years as a way to avoid over-production. Lin said the company was now working to reduce the long wait for its phones. Waiting in line to buy the phones is not something everyone will accept, he said. “This form of e-commerce experience has been problematic.”