Xiaomi sold all 40,000 units of its low-cost Redmi 1S in about 4 seconds

Chinese Android manufacturer Xiaomi may be trying to compete at the high end of Android devices with it’s iPhone-inspired Mi 3 handset and unsubtley-named Mi Pad, but it isn’t neglecting the low-end of the market. Its Redmi 1S just launched in India and, according to a tweet by former Google exec and now Xiaomi Global VP, sold 40,000 units in 4.2 seconds. The company’s flash-sale approach may generate headlines, but doesn’t appear to be winning it any friends, with would-be customers responding to the tweet with complaints. A similar thing happened with the Mi 3, reports Indian site NDTV Gadgets, where a recent flash sale of 20,000 handsets sold out in 2.4 seconds. The lesson would appear to be that you might be able to artificially create impressive-sound short-term stats, but at the cost of alienating your customers. It seems shortsighted for a company that doesn’t appear to need this type of gimmick: it announced back in July that it had more than doubled its year-on-year sales since it began its international expansion program.