Xiaomi Showcases SU7 Electric Sedan In India But Clarifies Sales Focus Only On China For 3 Years

China’s latest EV entrant Xiaomi XIACF showcased its SU7 electric sedan in India on Tuesday to commemorate the company’s tenth year in the country.

What Happened: At an event held in the city of Bengaluru on Tuesday, the company showcased its only production electric vehicle in the country for the first time.

However, Xiaomi does not intend to launch the vehicle in India, Sandeep Sarma, Associate Director of Marketing and PR at Xiaomi India, confirmed to Benzinga on the sidelines of the event. Xiaomi is going to focus solely on the Chinese market for three years, the senior executive said, while adding that it has witnessed good reception back home.

Xiaomi started taking orders for its new EV in late March and received over 50,000 firm orders in less than half an hour. The company subsequently started delivering the vehicle in April.

The SU7 is available in three variants, namely Standard, Pro, and Max with the lower-end variant starting at 215,900 yuan, lower than Tesla Inc.’s cheapest offering – the Model 3 – in China.

As of the end of June, Xiaomi has already delivered over 30,000 vehicles, Sarma said while adding that the company is ramping up production at its factory in Beijing to meet the heightened demand. For the whole year, Xiaomi intends to deliver about 120,000 units of the car.

While refusing to divulge particular profitability goals, Sarma said that the company aims to touch profitability by manufacturing at scale. Further, the company had announced as far back as 2018 that its net profit margin for its hardware business will never exceed 5%, he noted.

Unlike its competitor Apple Inc. which tried and gave up on making a car after investing significant time and capital for about 10 years, Xiaomi succeeded in making one and delivering several units within nearly 1,000 days of announcing its intention to enter the EV market in March 2021, Sarma noted.

Despite the heightened competition within China, Xiaomi ventured into the field of EVs in a bid to develop an ecosystem powered by it. The idea, Sarma said, is to exit a Xiaomi car to a home that is at the same temperature as your car and your playlist at home picking up from where you left off in the car.

At the event on Tuesday, Xiaomi showcased its SU7 higher-end Max variant priced at about 300,000 yuan (approximately $41,250) in China.

Check out more of Benzinga’s Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link.

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Photo courtesy: Anan Ashraf/Benzinga