After much anticipation, Xiaomi entered the UK market last week and everyone took note because the Chinese giant offers some quality products at affordable prices. The UK is also one of the biggest western markets in Xiaomi’s roster, but it has already landed itself in hot waters.

Yes, Xiaomi has managed to mess up its expansion to the UK market with its crazy flash sale deals. To celebrate its launch in the region, the company decided to offer two of its phones, i.e Mi A2 and Mi 8 Lite, at merely 1 GBP (￡1 or Rs 95), but many prospective buyers found there was a huge catch, which people in India would be more than familiar with. Image Courtesy: BBC

Xiaomi’s terms and conditions also said buyers would get the phones on a ‘first come, first serve’ basis but later said that it used a tie-breaker to chose who gets the phone from the many that clicked on buy.

n an official statement posted on Xiaomi UK’s Twitter handle, the company said that “we did not realize that the public associates this term (flash sale) with a very particular type of deal that Xiaomi has run in the past across different global markets.”

A statement to our Mi Fans: pic.twitter.com/Ij2jmrinaN

Xiaomi has also addressed the anger, confirming that a mere 10 customers managed to buy it. But it does show the company in a terrible light, especially because criticisms around such sales tactics have been around as long as the company itself. It also calls into question the boastful claims after every flash sale of how units were sold out in seconds – can we expect anyone to take this seriously anymore?

It’s great to see Xiaomi expanding to newer markets after building a cult following in markets such as India, Indonesia and China. However, the controversy does shed light on one major problem and that is the Chinese giant may need to rethink how it approaches these new Western markets. India is only now trying to place consumer-protection regulations on e-commerce sites, which lets manufacturers go haywire with false advertising. It’s simply not possible in the UK.