An Indian man claims that while he was riding his bike on Sunday, his Xiaomi smartphone suddenly exploded into flames inside his pocket.
Bhavana Suryakiran, the former owner of a Redmi Note, told the local Sakshi Post that because of the intense heat and flames he wasn’t able to pull his pants off until helpful onlookers arrived with a bucket of water. Even after being doused, Suryakiran says that the phone was still smoking and on fire.
The incident, which occurred in Ravulapalem in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, left Suryakiran with some nasty burns on his thigh. He said that he had bought the phone only 20 days before through Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart, adding that he planned to sue the company for compensation.
Xiaomi is one of China’s biggest business success stories, growing into the world’s largest smartphone startup in a matter of years, besting Apple in its home country while also expanding abroad, particularly to India where the company’s CEO gave an infamous speech in Chinglish in 2015.
During its rise to success, Xiaomi has been known to take ideas liberally from its competitors. When it launched its Redmi Note, the company was accused of stealing the name from the popular Samsung Galaxy Note. It now appears that they may have been inspired by the phone’s combustibility as well.
Xiaomi has acknowledged the incident, explaining that they are trying to get in contact with Suryakiran to get to the bottom of the matter. “We take such matters seriously as customer safety is of utmost importance for Xiaomi. All of our devices go through stringent quality tests,” a company spokesperson said.
Source: http://shanghaiist.com
