For years, India’s smartphone market operated on a familiar promise — wait a few months, and the same amount of money would buy better specs such as more storage, more memory, better cameras, and a faster chip. That equation is now under pressure as global memory and storage prices rise, driven by relentless AI investments. Sandeep Singh Arora, chief business officer at Xiaomi India, tells HT that after some short-term hesitation, tech companies and consumers are adjusting to this new reality.
“We are beginning to see the flywheel work again and demand returning,” he says, adding, “As prices go up across the industry, some customers will wait and watch. But we are also seeing the market start to stabilise as trade and consumers adapt. There is some short-term hesitation in parts of the chain.”
Arora is concerned that supply is tightening fast. WD and Seagate say their 2026 enterprise hard-drive capacity is already fully allocated. Meanwhile, Gartner estimates memory and SSD prices could jump 130% by year-end — pushing average PC prices up 17% and smartphone prices up 13%.
Research firm IDC expects the PC market to shrink by 11.3%, and the smartphone market to register a 12.9% decline.
Xiaomi’s scale in India means component inflation or supply stress can ripple across its portfolio, even as it strengthens smart TV and tablet businesses. Timing is crucial, with the Xiaomi 17 and Xiaomi 17 Ultra flagships launching in India on March 11. They’ll compete with Samsung’s new Galaxy S26 trio, led by the ₹1,39,999 Galaxy S26 Ultra.
India pricing for the 17 series is yet to be announced.
Anuj Sharma, Xiaomi India’s chief marketing officer, tells HT that though they “started relatively late in the flagship conversation” in India, each generation was built to solve a specific challenge. A key constant is Xiaomi’s partnership with German camera giant Leica.
This is in stark contrast to trends within the Android smartphone space. OnePlus no longer has Hasselblad optimisations, while Vivo’s partnership with Zeiss is broadly in a status quo state.
“In 2022 and 2023, we pushed large sensors, and in the years after, improved portraiture and telephoto capabilities. This year, the question was — how do we begin approaching what dedicated cameras can do? That’s why we moved from co-engineering to co-creation,” Sharma describes the philosophy.
“We want to keep moving closer to what the human eye sees, in dynamic range, detail, and realism,” a clear mandate for Xiaomi and Leica’s engineers. The Xiaomi 17 Ultra’s key imaging upgrade is a new sensor called LOFIC (Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor).
Its core differentiator is that, instead of combining multiple exposures that lead to motion blur, this sensor uses a specialised component to sift excess light from bright areas in a single shot. The result is better balance between shadows and brighter highlights, without blown-out areas, closer to how a human eye perceives a scene.
Milestones, and a bumpy road
Global supply chain disruptions — enough to derail product roadmaps and pricing plans — come as the company builds momentum in smart TVs, helped by a strong response to its recently launched 75-inch QLED flagship, and expands its tablet lineup with the new Xiaomi Pad 8 series.
“Xiaomi has one of the largest user bases in India across categories. A significant number of these users are now ready to upgrade because they’ve had a good experience with our products,” Arora points out, noting momentum with smartphones and tablets.
Market data suggests Xiaomi’s push into 43-inch and larger TVs is paying off. It currently holds a 7.9% share, ranking third behind Samsung (23.8%) and LG (16.5%), with estimates projecting this to rise to 12% this year. In tablets too, CyberMedia Research (CMR) data shows Xiaomi at 16%, close to Lenovo’s 19%, though Samsung remains well ahead at 34%.
Arora and Sharma insist Xiaomi’s premium push is not just about smartphones, but a broader play across product categories — an extension of the premiumisation journey it began a few years ago. They are confident of building on that momentum.“We believe we’ve met the initial milestones set for ourselves. Now we are accelerating,” he says.
“We have stronger channel capability, and we’re seeing growing consumer demand for premium Xiaomi products.” Small details, such as packaging and retail experience, will decide whether this push succeeds. Sharma points to the 75-inch QLED TV that went on sale this month. “In fact, demand is strong enough that we had internal discussions about production and whether we should manage communication until supply catches up,” he says.
HT asked Arora how Xiaomi measures that journey, and he outlined a four-part framework. “Our metrics are not just one number. We look at premium contribution within the portfolio, ASP (average selling price) growth, consumer satisfaction, and increasingly cross-category ownership,” he says.
