Xiaomi recently launched its Redmi Smart Fire TV 4K 43-inch in India in partnership with Amazon. This is the second Xiaomi Smart TV to integrate Amazon’s FireOS software and includes exciting features like 4K Ultra-High Definition along with HDR 10 and HLG support, and 24W speakers with Dolby Audio, DTS-Virtual:X at a competitive price of Rs. 24,999.
In our exclusive conversation, we discussed the exciting launch with two industry stalwarts: Anuj Sharma, the Chief Marketing Officer at Xiaomi, and Parag Gupta, who leads as Director and Country Manager for Amazon devices in India.
Both of these industry veterans possess an in-depth knowledge of their products, encompassing the decision-making processes from manufacturing, marketing and consumer standpoints. Out conversion resulted in some invaluable insights into the evolving landscape of consumer behaviour and the television industry in India.
Q) How has the Fire TV journey been in India so far? How has the response been for the 32-inch variant in India and maybe even worldwide?
Anuj Sharma: From the India perspective, it just made perfect sense, when we were looking at having the right partner. I think most people in India had their first experience of what a smart TV could be with the Fire TV sticks. So, when we had this opportunity, we’ve been working very closely with Amazon for years and years now. We just thought it’d be better that we extend our business partnership into a product partnership as well. And we decided to kind of do TVs together.
Our first TV that we did together was launched in March this year. And while you know, for both of us, you know, we were quite nervous, we were looking at how people will actually react to it. It became the number one seller on this first day itself. From there, it’s been a success story, and that’s why we are actually coming in with the second-gen out now. I think from even Xiaomi standards, it’s been a huge success and obviously, from a partnership perspective, we’re happy to kind of extend this further.
Parag Gupta: A big plus one to what Anuj said and I think just taking a step back on the Fire TV itself. We launched in 2017 and we have kind of set the bar high standard for online streaming on TVs. And to bring it on to one of the most loved and trusted TV brands in India is quite satisfying. This is also right in time for Diwali and we are hoping that the customers love it as much as they did the last one and purchase it just for the Fire TV experience. Most of our products, and in fact, all of our products are rated four plus and this is from millions of customers who have given us feedback over the years. Why do they love Fire TV? it’s a content-forward experience, it’s a lag-free experience, and you can find your content very quickly. Then obviously, with the Alexa Voice remote, you get all the smarts of the voice control and smart connectivity on the TV. All of that has really been appreciated by our customers and I think this is a huge step ahead just in time for the sale event that we’re gonna unfold on Diwali.
Q) Let’s talk a bit more about the new launch. What’s special with the Redmi Smart Fire TV 4K that differentiates it from the 32-inch variant that launched earlier this year?
Anuj Sharma: Oh, I think the biggest difference that comes in itself is the size. One aspect that we’ve seen from Indian consumers is more and more households are now looking for a larger team. Therefore, I think this makes it perfect for us. I think if I go back to when LCD TVs started coming out in India in 2004 -2005, 48” used to be the main SKU. 40-inch continues to be like an aspiration SKU for most Indian households, but we are going beyond that and are bringing in a 43-inch. Most people are looking to upgrade to a large TV. This makes it a perfect size where it fits in everyone’s home, but it also kind of gives you the large display that they’re looking at from a family perspective. The second aspect that we want – and this is almost our mission for the moment – is to get 4K into as many households as possible. It wasn’t really possible earlier, but over the last couple of years, we’ve seen, that the amount of 4K content that’s available has gone up, we’ve been fortunate enough to now start seeing big sporting events coming in in 4K. It’s actually the perfect time you also have a 4K TV available in as many houses as possible. So, a larger TV, a 4K TV with obviously all the great experiences that come with Fire TV.
Parag Gupta: It’s just about the customer’s choice, right? Like I said, giving that back then that experience and full 4K, and all of the audio and video theatre-like qualities for all of the original content, all of the movies, all of the sporting events, is incredibly exciting. A couple of other things just to add to what Anuj said, one of the key innovations I think is the picture-in-picture technology that’s coming on this TV exclusively. And what it allows you to do is, let’s say you have a camera, front door camera or a camera in your baby’s room. You can simply say ‘Alexa, show me the front door’ or ‘Alexa, show me the baby room’ and you will be able to see the feed without any hindrance to your viewing experience.
The other one that I would definitely want to talk about is TV experience. These customers will want to switch between the online content and the live content, like DTH box. And I think they’ve made that also incredibly useful. With the Redmi remote customers can easily switch between the two feeds without any hindrance. And they could even use Alexa as simply as saying “Alexa, switch over to DTH” to watch some of the content that they may want to watch linearly. I think you don’t need any IR cables, you don’t need any IR blasters and things like that. You can simply do it with voice or your remote. So those are the two things I would add, that are coming on this TV, apart from all of the size and the audio and the picture quality enhancements that are being rolled out.
Q) Can you also share some insights into the market share for 32-inch and 43-inch TVs in India? And also the non-smart TVs? Like are people still buying those?
Anuj Sharma: Oh, so, there is still some amount of non-smart TVs. It has gone down significantly and I think I would probably say that Xiaomi had a huge part to play in this. Back in 2018, I think smart TVs used to be you know, single-digit or only double-digit overall from a market share perspective. Now, about 90% to 95% of all TVs are actually smart TVs. So that change has already happened. But yes, what you are actually talking about from the size perspective also is there. A large part of consumers are looking at and have been buying a 32-inch, that’s been the top seller in festive sales over the last couple of years. This year, we’re hoping that we can change that.
Q) Since Xiaomi also has a portfolio of Android TVs in India, how do you think these two will coexist? What essentially will differentiate the experience for consumers?
Anuj Sharma: From a portfolio perspective, how Xiaomi kind of looks at this is, we try and bring in the best possible experiences, and give that choice to the consumers. So obviously, we’ve got TVs on multiple platforms, including now the very successful FireTVs. We will continue to have that as an option and as for the consumers to basically choose, you know, what they think, or what their viewing habits are, how they kind of view this aspect.
Q) Is the Fire TV stick experience similar to Fire TV, and are there any unique TV-specific features?
Parag Gupta: Most of the experience is consistent, but if you really think about it customers backwards, and what customers tell us, there are certain use cases that differ between let’s say, a Fire TV stick and Redmi with Fire-TV built-in. Some of those experiences have already been talked about, like for example, switching between your feeds, which is more prevalent when you have a TV than when you have a FireTV stick. Also the Picture-in-Picture kind of an experience where on the TV, you have the feed from a camera and you can just watch it right then and there. But overall, from our perspective, it is all about giving that content forward experiences regardless of the format. I mean, if you think about it from a Fire TV perspective, we have a range of devices that we offer the Fire TV experience on. Be it, a Fire TV Stick, a Fire TV Cube, or the Redmi TVs with Fire TV built-in, it’s all about creating that content-forward experience. I think we are driven by the experience with the tenet of saying, hey, how can we get the customers to watch the content more quickly than spending time searching for it? For example, if I say ‘Alexa play Kantara’, then Fire TV will pop up Katara right there, I don’t have to jump through the hoops one by one to find the content. And I think those are the kind of experiences we really, really want to deliver regardless of the format. But like I said, on the TV, there are certain use cases that are more prevalent and we have invented those on behalf of the customers.
Q) What are the opportunities that will enable the growth of the Smart TV industry in India, along with the challenges that lie ahead, say in the next five years or so?
Parag Gupta: Based on my experience, there are two to three factors acting as tailwinds. One is obviously the infrastructure itself. Wireless broadband is getting more and more prevalent and you can pump more data through them. Similarly, on Wi-Fi, there are new technologies that are coming in that allow you to have less latency, and higher performance. Then you come on the tech side. For example, this TV has some of the best panels, and the best audio experiences and so you come to the TV Tech itself. The performance is becoming better and better. Then you finally come to the experiences that are outside, that are kind of elevating the TV experience beyond just the TV. If you think about TV, it is the biggest screen and takes a central position in your house. So there is so much more you can do with it.
For example, on the new Fire TV, we have introduced a smart home dashboard and we’ll see how the customers react and adapt to it. But from a tech perspective, and from a feature perspective, they can see all the smart home experiences, all the connected smart home devices that they have, they can control their lights, they can control their cameras, they can control, their AC is on this TV. Customers can say, “Alexa, watch Farzi” and the lights can dim the AC can set up to a comfortable 22 degrees, and your blinds can close and that’s possible today. So I think that a lot of the stuff that we are seeing, a lot of the tech that’s coming, a lot of infrastructure that’s building out, which is going to transform TV. Some of the experiences that we have built out currently in the US, for example, the ambient experiences on Fire TV, which really kind of blends the tech into the background and allows the customers to have that delightful experience. I think all of those are going to get a very strong adoption in India. And I think five years from now, I think you said, I, I can’t even imagine what the biggest screen and the centre of your home could do. These are the experiences we can have even today. I believe we are incredibly optimistic about what TV experiences will be like in the future and how Fire TV will contribute to them
Anuj Sharma: I think five years is too long. If you go back to 2018 and ask me how 2023 will look, I think it’ll be completely off. Yeah, but the good news, I think is that it’s moved in the right direction. It’s moved faster than what I would have anticipated. And I’d agree with what Parag was saying. What you need is content, you need a way of delivering that content to the consumers and for the consumers to be able to consume that part. People want great content, people want to kind of see greater clarity, a lifelike kind of feel and obviously, the whole explosion of OTT content players has been great. The fact that they’ve all picked up on 4K is also very, very encouraging. The second part is, that we were in a way limited till now that you would have to have a broadband line to be able to view high-res content. Now with 5g coming in, and hopefully with the advent of CPE devices that you will start seeing, I think from the end of this week, right, the first CPE launch that comes in so that the data pipe is not really a problem anymore. This basically means you got great content, you have an easy way of getting that content in and with TVs like the Redmi FireTv that we’re launching now, you can also consume that so I think it’s completing that chain. What I would like to see in the next five years is just improvements in this part of it. And maybe, you know, a more immersive home experience. The whole future that we’ve always envisioned but we’ve never been able to execute.
Parag Gupta: Even from our Xiaomi and Amazon partnership perspective, we have so many Xiaomi products on our marketplace and we are like you could connect with Xiaomi Smart Camera on this wall. You could connect a Xiaomi smart bulb to it. I think if you just take a step back and say this is the biggest screen, what can we do to it? And with it, the possibilities are amazing.
Q) How has consumer behaviour for smart TVs changed in recent times? Are they using voice commands a lot more than they used to? How has it been in the pandemic and post-pandemic era?
Anuj Sharma: I think that’s a very interesting observation, what’s changed in the post-pandemic world, you know, from a consumption perspective. One thing that’s happened in 2020 -2021, because everyone was sitting at home, mostly, the content consumption went up significantly. This also meant that the discoverability of different content, avenues, and genres went up. The consumption of Hollywood and Bollywood blockbusters at home started becoming more and more. What’s happened, once we’ve gone into this post-pandemic world is while certain movies and movie halls continue to do well, people have still not shaken off what they can do at home. The entire movie viewing experience for that matter, is almost gone back to I would probably say, you know, the Doordarshan era. This is for people of my age, every Sunday, in the evening. I remember, as kids, we would all gather around the TV because, at six o’clock, you would have this DD one movie that would play across the country.
Somewhere between, halfway through that movie, we at least people who go to school would start getting depressed, you know, we’ve not done our homework for Monday. I think in a way, you know, it’s brought the family back together. We’ve gone to this habit where the family comes back and when a new movie is coming on to, say a Prime Video, for the first time, people are watching it together again. This basically means the importance of having a larger TV. We just spoke about the fact that earlier, people were just kind of getting a taste of the flat-screen TVs with a 32-inch, but now people have started actually looking at a bigger display. And along with that, when you’re watching a movie, you want it in that movie, like, you know, effect. You want great video, you want great sound, and you probably are watching it in HDR 10. And that’s where the demand or focus has actually gone up significantly for Xiaomi. Where I think in the last year itself, our 4K devices have gone up by 70%. This is all post-pandemic. So people are kind of watching that and people are a little more attuned to these small changes. They can kind of see that I don’t want to watch it in 480P or 720P want to watch it in the glory that it was supposed to be in. So that’s where a larger TV for the household because the household is finally coming together is becoming important. And they want to watch it in full. So that’s essentially, part of our research which has led up to this particular product launch for us as well.
Parag Gupta: A big plus one to what Anuj said. Just to give you another data point, on Alexa, people place about six search queries every second in India. So you can you can imagine how much content is being watched and binge-watched right, one after the other. That is showing up in how many originals are starting to come. If you just compare 2019 to 2023, you will notice that the amount of original content that various content providers are pumping out including Prime Video has gone up. And that’s again to cater to that experience that the customers are looking for. I will also add one more fun fact the demand of other users also started going up. For example, fitness videos and people working along with their TV became almost like personal trainers in the gym. There are a lot more fitness apps today on the Amazon App Store on Fire TV than they were four years ago. That experience is still continuing. So, our research shows that some of the experiences that people picked up during that time in a kind of forced way they have started to love and they are extending them as an odd set, even post-pandemic. I think some of these are persistent and here to say
Parag Gupta: I would just say that it’s been an incredible partnership, I think it’s the coming together of two companies that have a very similar customer-backwards, customer-centric mindset. And that’s allowed us to bring these experiences to customers. During the Diwali sale, which we call the Great India Festival, electronics is one of the categories that customers love. Fire TV has always been one of the best sellers across the site in most of these events. Anuj also mentioned, and I’m sure he will echo this, that I think this is a great offering, this is a great product, and just in time for the cricket World Cup. I hope customers love it. And we will be eagerly waiting to see their reaction.
Anuj Sharma: We continue to have that content-first approach. So it just makes perfect sense to have this partnership. Content with Fire TV, obviously makes it a lot easier to find a lot easier to navigate and as Parag was saying a lot easier to search as well. You’re not wasting too much time in that aspect of it. And obviously, you know, when we would, we have to kind of justify how that software is with the right hardware as well. So we continue to bring in all our innovations. It still comes with all the learnings that we’ve had in India, in terms of how consumers like that content, and we’ve kind of put that back into the picture quality. I’m fairly confident about how people will kind of perceive this device. I think internally also from our tests perspective, everyone who’s experienced this TV has loved it. Can’t wait for consumers to also get a hand get their hands on this and see.
