Xiaomi India has completed six years of its operation in the country in 2020. Manu Kumar Jain, MD at Mi India, spoke to CNBC-TV18 to discuss the year gone by and what the next decade would look like.

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Jain tells CNBC-TV18 that the first quarter of 2021 could be the best non-Diwali quarter for the company's smartphone business.

He said the company is "As Indian as it gets" as all the phones, smart TVs sold in the Indian market are now made in India. Also confirms that its Indian partners like Foxconn will apply for the PLI scheme.

“2020 was the most interesting year that you can think of, in March we were sitting and were preparing a business plan and we had assumed that pandemic will have zero impact on our business and we were completely wrong. Soon the lockdown was announced and then the market declined a little bit but the key point to note is if you exclude those three months - April-May and June then if you look at 9 months Indian smartphone market actually increased.”

“Because of COVID, a lot more people want to use smartphones for work from home, study from home. Hence Q3 and Q4 numbers were actually significantly better than what we or anybody in the market was expecting.”

On challenges faced because of anti-China sentiments, he said, “We are as Indian and as localised, all our phones are being designed and customised in India by India product team and we are making all phones and a significant amount of components that go inside the phone are locally manufactured.”

On the PLI scheme, Jain said, “The factories that we have in India are Foxconn and they are the partners who will apply for this PLI scheme.”

Watch accompanying video for more.

(Edited by : Bivekananda Biswas)

First Published:Feb 25, 2021 7:42 PM IST