Indian buyers angry that Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro sold out in seconds

Normally, when a phone sells incredibly fast, it’s a cause for celebration. But Indian buyers are angry that the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro sold out in seconds during its first flash sale.

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The Indian Redmi Twitter account made a big to-do over the whole event, posting the image below. Touting the sell-out as “the biggest sale ever in the history of India,” Xiaomi is apparently trying to drum up publicity for its highly-anticipated smartphone.

Twitter users are not so easy to win over and many have taken issue with the “< 3 mins” claim, as they report the Flipkart site crashing within seconds of the sale going live (though the sales count also included purchases made on Mi.com). It’s not impossible that over 300,000 people bought the smartphone in only a few seconds, but it is a little unlikely.

In a somewhat suspicious coincidence, Xiaomi also sold out of the Mi TV 4 in only a few seconds during a very similar flash sale. Xiaomi did not claim how many were sold at that time — it could have been 10 televisions or 100,000 (likely the former).

Xiaomi promises new flash sales for the Redmi Note 5 Pro on February 28 and the Mi TV 4 on February 27, which are both right in the middle of Mobile World Congress 2018. It’s possible these first flash sales were just dummy runs to build up anticipation for the next flash sales, which just happen to be during the most significant mobile conference in the world. Some users have already jumped ship to other smartphones, which could mean Xiaomi’s plan is backfiring:

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that the “3,00,000” figure was unclear. As pointed out in the comments, this is how 300,000 is written in India. We’ve also made it clearer that the number was taken from sales on both Flipkart and Mi.com. We apologize for the confusion.