Manu Kumar Jain- Short story of great success

About Manu Kumar Jain ( Managing Director of Xiaomi India )

 

The short success story of today is that of Mr. Manu Kumar Jain. Mr. Jain was born on 25 January 1981 in Meerut, district, Uttar Pradesh. He is a leading Indian entrepreneur and the Global Vice President of Xiaomi. He is also the Managing Director of Xiaomi India.

Mr. Jain who was co-founded Jabong.com, a fashion and lifestyle e-commerce portal in India and served as its Managing Director from February 2012 to January 2014.  What Mr. Jain learned throughout his IIT studies, &  Jabong's experience that he got  & all the intelligence he put into making Xiaomi a successful brand.

In today's story, we will learn how Manu Jain made Xiaomi a successful brand in India. Through this story, you will get a lesson, how you can expand and grow your business successfully if you want.

Today is the No.1 brand of Xiaomi India under the leadership of Mr. Jain. How did Xiaomi become such a big brand in India?

 

Why Manu Kumar Jain Move Out From Jabong.com Company

Mr. Manu Kumar Jain earned a lot of experience from his Jabong.com portal, which is a fashion and lifestyle e-commerce portal in India and Mr. Jain served as its Managing Director from February 2012 to January 2014.

When Mr. Jain was first to enter Jabong Business, he was in doubt about whether anyone wouldn't take clothes and shoes from his platform? Because at that time customers used to believe in taking clothes and shoes to go to the market.

But when he started his online platform to sell clothes and shoes, then gradually customers started shopping from online platforms. By the time Jain moved out of Jabong in 2014, the company was widely recognized as one of the leading retail portals in India. Mr. Jain curiosity about smartphones started & He wanted to do something in the field of smartphones. That’s why Jain moved out of Jabong in 2014

 

How Manu Jain journey began toward Xiaomi

When his business Jabong started running, he began to notice that 60-70% of customers were shopping from their platform, they were doing it through smartphones.

When Mr. Jain saw customers using the online platform from mobile in India, he would wonder how Indians used to do all the online work from smartphones without using desktops and laptops.

This thing came to his mind because, in America and China, people first used to do the entire online work from the desktop. Then after the desktop, they adopted the laptop and started doing their online work with the laptop, and later they started using the mobile for online work.

Therefore, he was surprised that people in India started doing their online work not from desktops and laptops but from smartphones. Which was a big deal for Mr. Jain.

After that Mr.Jain's curiosity about smartphones started increasing and then he heard about a company 2010, which was Xiaomi. At that time because Xiaomi was a small startup, and was only 3–4 years old, no one was aware of Xiaomi outside of China.

So once Mr. Jain had gone to China, he had a casual meeting with the founders of Xiaomi because Mr. Jain had a lot of interest in smartphones at that time, and the founders of Xiaomi wanted to understand the market of India.

After that meeting, the founders of Xiaomi and Mr. Jain were in touch with each other. Then when Mr. Jain left Jabong's company in 2014 because he wanted to do something in the field of smartphones.

After leaving Jabong's company, then a few months later, Mr. Jain met the founders of Xiaomi. Xiaomi founders said why don't you work for us because you want to do something in the field of smartphones, and we also want to start our company in India. After that Mr. Jain asked Xiaomi founder Lei Jun why do you want to work with me because my knowledge is very less in the field of smartphones.

Then Lei Jun said that we need a young person who has a lot of knowledge in the internet field because Xiaomi's company had internet service along with Xiaomi's phones.

What difficulties did Manu Jain face after becoming the MD of Xiaomi India and why?

The founders of Xiaomi appointed Mr.Jain to the post of country head. But for Manu Jain, there was a big problem that Indian customers did not know about Xiaomi at that time. At that time, many people told Mr. Jain that this mobile will not run here, because 94% of people used to go to the market and took the phone and they did not even know the name of Xiaomi, and 6% of people used to take the phone from online.

The biggest challenges were for Mr. Jain to sell mobiles online. Mr.Jain knew that if he would sell his phone in the market, his mobile cost would increase because he had to rebate the distributor, wholesaler, and retailer first and then he would have to increase the price of the mobile in compulsion. Maybe many people do not even carry Xiaomi phones if the price increases.

 

How Manu Jain success began after the first Xiaomi mobile phone MI 3  launched on Flipkart

Mr. Jain then launched the first mobile phone MI3 in the Indian market with 10 thousands phones. Again, many people said that no one will buy this mobile because no one knows its name, you did not even promote it and you are selling it online. But Mr. Jain did not give up and found a way to sell mobile.

Mr. Jain noticed that there is a MI page on Facebook, in which 10,000 people were following the MI page. So they shared information about mobile on that page and also told the time of selling online. They knew that these people can buy phones.

Then he launched that phone on Flipkart on 22 July 2014 and on that day around 5 Lakhs customers come to buy that phone. The first time Flipkart's site crashed that day. Now Mr. Jain came to know that Xiaomi's phones will now dominate the Indian market and from that day his confidence also increased. Those 5 Lakhs customers came only from Word of mouth. Meaning that the information Mr. Jain shared on MI Facebook page, people had promoted their mobile by sharing each other. The biggest achievement was that Mr. Jain did not spend a single penny in the promotion of Xiaomi.

 

Achievement of Xiaomi during Manu Jain's tenure

As a result of this, Xiaomi's phones had made a place in the hearts of people, as it was the first cheap smartphone that had many features. After that, he did not look back from there.

Today’s he made Xiaomi a big brand of India. From July 2017 to December 2018, Mr. Jain had brought Xiaomi to Rank 1 position in India.

Mr. Jain had increased the market share of Xiaomi to 29% in the months of October, November, and December of 2018 and all of this was done by Mr. Jain.

The market share of Samsung at that time was 19%. There was a big difference of 10% between Xiaomi and Samsung and it was a big deal because Samsung was a big brand at that time.

 

Conclusion

So this story tells us that no matter how hard the floor is, we should never give up. That day, If  Mr. Jains changed themselves after listening to others, they would not have been at this stage today.

Never should any businessman think that we will ever be able to move forward or not? Because of today’s scenario, more than half of the most successful businessmen, have gone from bottom to top.

So always try to expand your business in vertical or horizontal. Never forget one thing, hard work will take you ahead. Today's story ends here. We will meet again with some other story. Till then thank you.