Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone company, introduces exclusive, low-priced 5G data packages to boost their 5G smartphone sales
Xiaomi, a Chinese smartphone vendor, has announced its new 5G data packages which go for as low as 49 yuan ($7) monthly. This is all in a bid to boost the sales of 5G phones. The 5G data plans will be exclusive to only Xiaomi phone users, and this can only be interpreted as a determination to win on the part of the company in the 5G phone race.
Though there are a lot of virtual carriers in China, they are still not the choice for a lot of phone users. Xiaomi which operates on a virtual carrier license is currently the only company which manufactures their phones and also offers 5G data packages. This move is a killer one as it allows them to attract a lot of new customers with their 5G data packages which are low cost.
The 5G packages offered by Xiaomi come in 3 different plans. There is the basic plan which is 49 yuan and includes 20GB of data in 50 minutes, there is the 69 yuan package which features 30GB data in 100 minutes and there’s the 99 yuan plan which features 40GB data in 200 minutes. All of these are however restricted only to those who purchase the 5G Redmi K30 5G phone model which sells at 1, 999 yuan. They will be given a phone card with which to access the data plans.
Xiaomi has stated that they haven’t opened the 5G data plans to users of 5G phones from other brands and is obviously not in a hurry to do so as no date has been fixed. So you could say this service is currently an exclusive package for users of Redmi K30 phones.
The state owned carriers including China Unicom had launched their 5G networks in October. For China Unicom, their 5G packages are at 129 yuan monthly with 20GB data for 500 minutes. A lot of vendors are expecting the sales of 5G phones to skyrocket seeing all the data plans in place.
IDC’s quarterly mobile phone tracker report states that the shipments of smartphones from China stood at 98.9 million units as at the 3rd quarter of the previous year and this had dropped by 3.6 percent. Xiaomi as one of the vendors shipped 9.7 million units last year and this was less by 30.5 percent. This made Xiaomi the 4th largest smartphone vendor in 2019.
What is considered as an alternative to other brands is the smartphone maker. The Samsung Galaxy S10 5G is about $1000 and Huawei Mate 30 5G is about $880 but Xiaomi’s MI 9 Pro 5G is currently at $520 and it’s MI MIX 3 5G starts from $670.
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