Lumio, Indian smart TV brand made by ex-Xiaomi execs, won't rule out phone launch
Will Lumio ever make a smartphone? India Today Tech asked and this is what we found.
In the tech world, expectations fly sky-high. Naturally, when a team of ex-smartphone executives comes together to build something – anything – the industry starts whispering about a mobile comeback. That is what people have been wondering about Lumio, the homegrown home entertainment brand made by ex-Xiaomi and Flipkart executives, too. India Today Tech sat down with Lumio CEO and Cofounder Raghu Reddy, to find out the answer once and for all.
When pressed on whether Lumio will eventually launch a smartphone to compete with its former employer, Reddy remained pragmatic but open. “We’ll never say never [to a smartphone],” he said. “But our current focus is strictly on home entertainment: TVs, projectors, and [perhaps speakers one day].”
Founded in 2024 by a small group of seasoned industry veterans, Lumio isn't trying to be everything to everyone. Not yet anyway. Instead, it is betting on a singular customer pain point: the slow TV epidemic. One year into its journey, this Bangalore-based startup is proving that there is plenty of room for a brand that treats a television more like a high-performance smartphone than a piece of static furniture.
“Looking back, there were three core problems we wanted to solve,” Reddy explained. Chief among them is the lag. “We felt the market was full of TVs that were slow, laggy, and frustrating to use. Many users have simply grown used to it and don’t realise there’s a better way,” Reddy said. This isn’t just a budget-segment issue. It’s a systemic failure Lumio sees across all price points.
Beyond the lag, there is the paradox of choice. As we move entirely to OTT, we spend more time scrolling than watching. “We believe this is a software problem,” Reddy noted, adding that Lumio has spent a year perfecting the discovery experience to cut through the noise. Finally, there’s the issue of longevity. Unlike smartphones, TVs are high-ticket items meant to last years, yet brands often abandon them the moment they leave the showroom. “We want to make it the new normal to have a device that keeps upgrading and adding features over time.”
In its first year, Lumio sold 20,000 devices. While Reddy admitted that’s a small slice of a massive pie, the data behind those numbers is what’s turning heads. Reddy emphasised that 64 percent of customers have upgraded to Lumio from brands like Sony, Samsung, LG, and Xiaomi.
“To make a mark in a market with over 60 brands, you have to be very clear about who you are solving for,” said Reddy. For Lumio, that ray of light has been a relentless focus on speed and performance.
The brand hasn’t stopped at TVs. The Lumio Arc series of projectors represents Reddy’s philosophy of building products that spark joy. But why projectors?
“With projectors, we saw two issues,” Reddy said. “First, cheap projectors often make exaggerated claims about brightness and app compatibility. We decided to be honest: we don't exaggerate specs, and we ensure apps work seamlessly.”
The second hurdle was complexity. Lumio built the Arc to be a plug and play device. “It feels like magic because it’s so simple,” he says, aiming to position projectors as a viable living room alternative for the 18-25 demographic looking for social, big-screen viewing.
Despite the ex-Xiaomi tag, Lumio is a 100 percent Indian team, funded by local venture firms and manufacturing locally through Dixon in Tirupati. However, the DNA of his former life is visible in one area: customer obsession. This obsession manifested in an unusual way. Lumio launched a network of 300 plus service centres covering 19,000 pin codes before it even sold its first unit. “We had the service team working six months before we even went live,” Reddy revealed.
Lumio sees the growing uncertainty brought about by the component price hike as an opportunity. “Business isn't linear, sometimes you go in circles or hit steep slopes. Chaos is an opportunity if you keep your wits,” he said. While the goal is to double the customer base this year, the vision is deeper than just sales. Lumio is doubling down on software R&D – which makes up 50 percent of its headcount – focusing on initiatives like Project Neo and TLDR which are making their debut on the 2026 Lumio Vision 9. With them, Reddy and Co. want to make TV the central family device for the smart home through AI-driven experiences.