Xiaomi and Uber pair up to hand-deliver smartphones in Asia
Thu 23 Jul 2015
Uber has teamed up with Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi to courier its latest Mi Note phones directly to customers in Singapore and Malaysia.
Hand-delivered within an hour by the ride-sharing service, the Mi Note will be available to buy across Uber’s smartphone app once the device goes on sale.
Currently, Xiaomi customers have to wait up to five days to receive a new smartphone or tablet. However, the partnership with taxi-hailing app Uber will allow customers to start using their device on the same day that they put through their order.
“Ordering a Mi Note follows the exact same process as calling for an Uber — you simply open the Uber app, use the slider at the bottom to select “Xiaomi” […] and hit request,” said Xiaomi’s International VP Hugo Barra.
Orange-coloured vehicles on the Uber app will represent drivers available to deliver the Mi Note. Xiaomi has claimed that within “a few minutes” of processing the order, an Uber driver will set off to deliver the device personally.
The publicity initiative will roll out across the entire city state of Singapore, and will also expand into Malaysia – where customers in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur will enjoy the service.
Xiaomi has only allocated a limited number of handsets to the Uber event, taking place next week on the 27th July – a day before online sales of the Mi Note are expected to begin on Xiaomi’s official store.
The smartphone maker, valued at $46bn [paywalled] (approx. £29bn), is pushing its global expansion out of its domestic Chinese market. The Uber deal marks an attempt to drive marketing efforts across other Asian countries.
The Mi Note, priced at around £270, is already available in Hong Kong. The device features a 5.7-inch screen, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, a 13-megapixel camera, as well as 3GB of RAM and 64GB of available onboard storage.
