Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 and Redmi Note 5 Pro, launched last month, are currently being sold in India through flash sales with the third one held on Wednesday, March 7. While the sales have become a runaway hit for the brand, there is one issue plaguing them - resellers. To curb resellers from purchasing numerous units and selling them off at a premium, Xiaomi India on Tuesday announced that it would be removing the COD (Cash On Delivery) payment option for the Redmi Note 5 Pro for "initial few sales" on Mi.com and Flipkart.
While this move is expected to impact the subset of resellers that order units using COD, and cancel orders depending on demand, the process of cancelling prepaid orders is very feasible and can still be misused by these resellers. It has been widely rumoured that bulk buyers use certain script codes in order to score several units in flash sales. This practice has kept genuine buyers from getting units for themselves. Xiaomi's move is aimed at helping these genuine customers get their hands on a Redmi Note 5 Pro.
"We have always, and will continue to stringently discourage unauthorised reselling across all our channels," said Xiaomi India in a statement on the Mi Community Forum. Additionally, Xiaomi has measures in place that block COD orders and coupons for suspicious accounts on Mi.com.
The dual SIM smartphone from Xiaomi runs MIUI 9 on top of Android Nougat out-of-the-box. The phone sports a 5.99-inch full-HD+ (1080x2160 pixels) IPS display with an 18:9 aspect ratio. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 SoC, coupled with up to 6GB of RAM and 64GB of inbuilt storage. There is a 4000mAh battery under the hood.
In terms of camera specifications, the smartphone packs in a dual rear camera setup with a 12-megapixel primary sensor (f/2.2 aperture) and a 5-megapixel secondary sensor (f/2.0 aperture), coupled with an LED flash. On the front, the phone has a 20-megapixel selfie camera with an LED selfie-light.
Can Xiaomi shake up the TV market in India? We discussed that on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.
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