Prior to Note 3, Indian market was flooded with cheap useless phones with worthless mediatek processor. Apart from ASUS Zenfone no phone had a decent quality nor processor. Since Moto was being sold to Lenovo even that was getting dull.
Redmi had its name back in Global market but once it entered officially with Note 3, the Indian market took it by surprise. A Snapdragon 650 processor, 4000maH battery and a IPS LCD Full HD screen and software updates, even an own theme store. Customisable UI. This was something even Samsung phones didnt have. Only competitor was Le Eco (1st phone with Type C USB) which ended up as a quick bomb. Redmi was unstoppable. All markets turned online and flash sales now became common. Customers understood "value for money".
Mine was a beast. Due to my abuse it lasted well for a year and took a battery replacement twice. 4 years the phone worked amazingly well. 650 Processor was the highlight. For 3years this processor had no match in the 10k budget. Note 4 n 5 with 625 and 636 were just battery efficient, not powerful enough as Note 3. IR blaster was a surprise for me. For 2 years they provided software updates. That was new.
Xiaomi definitely rule the market from 2016-2019.
Eventhough realme came in 2018, their initial phones were crap
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