Xiaomi - Australia store
Time: Thursday Jul 24, 2014
Place: Australia
Details: In March 2014, Xiaomi Store Australia (an unrelated business) began selling Xiaomi mobile phones online in Australia through its website, XiaomiStore.com.au. However, they traded for only a few months, as Xiaomi soon "requested" that the store be shut down on (or by) 25 July 2014. Shortly after sales were halted, the website itself was also taken down, on 7 August 2014. An industry commentator described the action by Xiaomi to get the Australian website closed down as unprecedented, saying, “I’ve never come across this [before]. It would have to be a strategic move.” At the time this left only one online vendor selling Xiaomi mobile phones into Australia, namely Yatango (formerly MobiCity), which was based in Hong Kong — although this business closed in late 2015.