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 like more storage, more memory, better cameras and a faster chip. This equation is now under pressure as global memory and storage prices are driven by continued AI investment. Sandeep Singh Arora, chief business officer, Xiaomi India, tells HT that after some short-term hesitation, tech companies and consumers are adjusting to this new reality.
“We’re starting to see the flywheel working again and demand returning,” he says, adding that as prices rise across the industry, some customers will wait and see. But we are also seeing the market begin to stabilize as businesses and consumers adapt. There are some short-term hiccups in some parts of the series.
Arora is worried that supplies are dwindling rapidly. WD and Seagate say their 2026 enterprise hard-drive capacity is already fully allocated. Meanwhile, Gartner estimates that memory and SSD prices could rise 130% by the end of the year – with average PC prices rising 17% and smartphone prices rising 13%.
Research firm IDC expects the PC market to decline by 11.3% and the smartphone market to decline by 12.9%.
Xiaomi’s scale in India means component inflation or supply tensions could weigh on its portfolio, even as it strengthens its smart TV and tablet businesses. With the Xiaomi 17 and Xiaomi 17 Ultra flagships launching in India on March 11, timing is of the essence. They will compete with Samsung’s new Galaxy S26 trio, which will be led by Samsung. ₹Rs 1,39,999 Galaxy S26 Ultra.
India pricing for the 17 Series has not been announced yet.
Anuj Sharma, chief marketing officer, Xiaomi India, tells HT that although they “started relatively late in the major conversation” in India, each generation was created to solve a specific challenge. Xiaomi’s partnership with German camera giant Leica is a major continuation.
This is in stark contrast to the trends in the Android smartphone sector. OnePlus no longer has Hasselblad optimizations, while Vivo’s partnership with Zeiss remains largely status quo.
“In 2022 and 2023, we pushed to larger sensors, and in the years that followed, improved portrait and telephoto capabilities. This year, the question was – how do we start to approach what dedicated cameras can do? That’s why we moved from co-engineering to co-creation,” Sharma describes the philosophy.
A clear mandate for the engineers at Xiaomi and Leica is, “We want to get closer to what the human eye sees in dynamic range, detail, and realism.” The major imaging upgrade of the Xiaomi 17 Ultra is a new sensor called LOFIC (Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor).
Its main difference is that, instead of combining multiple exposures that lead to motion blur, this sensor uses a special component to remove excess light from bright areas in a single shot. The result is a better balance between shadows and bright highlights, without blown-out areas, similar to how the human eye sees a scene.
Milestones, and bumpy road
The disruption to the global supply chain — enough to derail product roadmaps and pricing plans — comes as the company picks up 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.
Looking at the uptake of smartphones and tablets, Arora explains, “Xiaomi has one of the largest user bases in India across all categories. A large number of these users are now ready to upgrade as they have had a good experience with our products.”
Market data suggests Xiaomi’s push into 43-inch and larger TVs is paying off. Its share currently stands at 7.9%, third behind Samsung (23.8%) and LG (16.5%), and is expected to rise to 12% this year. Even in tablets, CyberMedia Research (CMR) data shows Xiaomi is at 16%, close to Lenovo at 19%, although Samsung is well ahead at 34%.
Arora and Sharma emphasize that Xiaomi’s premium push is not just about smartphones, but has a broader role across product categories – an extension of the premiumization journey that started a few years ago. They are confident of carrying that momentum forward. “We are confident that we have met the initial milestones we have set for ourselves,” he says. Now we are increasing the pace.
“We have strong channel capabilities, and we are seeing growing consumer demand for premium Xiaomi products.” Small details like packaging and retail experience will decide whether the effort will be successful or not. Sharma points to the 75-inch QLED TV that went on sale this month. “In fact, demand is so strong that we had internal discussions about production and whether we should manage communications until supply increases,” he says.
HT asked Arora how Xiaomi measures that journey, and he outlined a four-part framework. “Our metrics are not just a number,” he says. “We look at premium contribution within the portfolio, ASP (average selling price) growth, consumer satisfaction and increasingly cross-category ownership.”