Xiaomi Mi 3 Exclusivity Teased by Flipkart Ahead of Tuesday's Launch

It seems Xiaomi, following the footsteps of Asus and Motorola, is teaming up with e-commerce giant Flipkart to launch the Mi 3 in the country. The popular online retailer also suggested via a series of tweets that the smartphone will be sold only via its website.

The first tweet said, "Gripping pace, artistic merit, a vibrant display! Coming soon exclusively on Flipkart!" that was accompanied by a teaser image that partially revealed the handset and showed the tagline "Accelerate your life." Notably, Xiaomi India site has the same ("Accelerate your life") tagline on the Mi 3 smartphone listing page.

Another tweet said, "A Hell in a cell! A sculpted body of work! Coming soon exclusively on Flipkart!" and showed the side profile of the handset.

Earlier reports had been tipping that Xiaomi, often referred as the 'Apple of China', was gearing for a tie-up with Flipkart for selling its smartphones in India. However, Xiaomi's Global Vice President and former Google Vice President, Hugo Barra had hinted in March that the company plans to sell the smartphones at competitive prices via its own e-commerce site, contradicting any such tie-up with Flipkart.

Based on Flipkart's latest series of tweets, it seems the company has had a rethink since then.

Last week, Xiaomi India, putting an end to speculations, finally revealed the first smartphone for the market, the Xiaomi Mi 3. The smartphone was listed company's site at Rs. 14,999, with an expected launch on Tuesday.

The Xiaomi Mi 3 runs a highly tweaked version of the Android 4.4 dubbed MIUI version 5. It comes with a 5-inch full-HD LCD display (1080x1920 pixels) offering a pixel density of 441ppi. Some of the specifications of the Mi 3 include a 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (8274AB) processor; 2GB of RAM; Adreno 330 GPU; 16GB inbuilt storage; 13-megapixel rear camera featuring a f/2.2 aperture and dual-LED flash; 2-megapixel camera, and 3050mAh battery.

With the announcement of Mi 3, Xiaomi has become the first handset manufacturers to offer an Android smartphone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset below the Rs. 15,000 mark.