China's smartphone maker Xiaomi plans to triple its number of European stores by the end of this year, up from about 50 at the end of 2018, said its senior vice president Wang Xiang in an interview.
Over the past two to three years, the company has entered about 80 countries and regions and is continuing its global expansion. Xiaomi entered France and Italy and opened stores there last May after its first European stop established in Spain in 2017. This year, it eyes to increase the number of its European stores to 150.
Statistics from market analysts Canalys showed that Xiaomi's shipment in the European market in the fourth quarter of 2018 totaled 3.4 million, up 62 percent year-on-year. Other brands like Apple, Samsung and HMD Global, however, reported a drop in shipment in the same period.
Xiaomi, together with other popular Chinese smartphone makers like Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, accounted for a third of all smartphone shipments in Europe, and Huawei took 23 percent of that figure, according to Canalys.
The smartphone maker also stands out in the Indian market. Its shipment there, by the end of the fourth quarter of 2018, remained the first for five consecutive quarters, according to the research company IDC.
