Xiaomi has confirmed it has partnered with Redington as its distributor partner to push its offline retail strategy in India. The news was broken by BGR India today. In an exclusive interview with BGR India, Xiaomi’s India head Manu Kumar Jain confirmed the news and also gave details about how it plans to go about with its offline retail strategy. Also Read - Xiaomi Mi TV Horizon Edition details, and design leaks right before the launch

“Yes, we are exploring something in offline retail, the unorganized offline retail stores or general trade in particular,” Jain told BGR India. Xiaomi is currently testing a pilot project with Redington where it will look at 15-16 cities initially with a few hundred outlets in each city. Also Read - Xiaomi Mi 100W car charger, 20W Smart Tracking charging pad, and more launched

“We hope to have a pan-India offline retail presence by the end of the year or early next year,” he mentioned.

Unlike other brands that struggle with pricing parity in offline and online retail channels, Xiaomi is confident that it would be able to maintain the same pricing across channels.

This is not the first time Xiaomi has ventured into offline retail in India having partnered with Airtel stores and The Mobile Store in the past. “This is not new for us. In China, 70 percent of our sales happen from mi.com but the rest 30 percent comes from offline retail,” Jain explained.

The move will not alter Xiaomi’s pricing structure as Jain claims the company factors in these costs while pricing products. What would be interesting to see is what will happen with online flash sales, a concept pioneered by Xiaomi that also becomes a great marketing activity for the company without incurring any significant marketing costs.

“We would like to bring in products across our retail channels simultaneously. Currently, all our products barring the Mi 4i 32GB and Power Banks are available in open sale. If we are able to reach the supply demand equilibrium we would bring them to offline retail as well,” Jain said.

Redington won’t be the exclusive distribution partner for Xiaomi’s offline retail push. The company is in talks with other distributors as well. Eventually the company might have one or two more distributor partners. Currently Redington is not importing the units, which are being imported from China by Xiaomi’s existing importers.

The offline retail push will be critical for Xiaomi, which had earlier announced it had sold 34.7 million smartphones in the first half of 2015. At the end of 2014, CEO Lei Jun had set a target of selling 100 million smartphones in 2015. India is Xiaomi’s second biggest market after China.

With an online dominated retail strategy, Xiaomi was reaching out to less than a fourth of India’s smartphone market. “Currently online retail accounts for less than 25 percent of the total smartphone market by volume in India,” according to Jayanth Kolla, a partner at Convergence Catalyst, a market research and consulting firm.

Initially Xiaomi will sell four products – the Mi 4, Mi 4i, Redmi 2 and Mi Pad – in offline retail stores from next week.