Xiaomi today announced the availability of Mi 3 smartphone in the Indian mobile market — priced at Rs 14,999.

Incidentally, Taiwanese phone vendor HTC is announcing its Android smartphone on Friday in India.

The Chinese handset maker said its first offering will be available for pre-booking from next week for Indian smartphone users.

Also read: iPhone 5s 16GB, Galaxy S4 16GB top sold phones in Q1 2014

Recently, ABI Research said Xiaomi Redmi, which is now available outside of China, at $130, is the one of the top sold smartphones in the world during Q1 2014.

Mi 3 will be available for pre-booking in India from July 15. The company did not announce any special offer.

Recently, Xiaomi has hired Jabong co-founder Manu Kumar Jain to head its operations in India, the second largest telecom market in the world.

Mi 3 smartphone features Google Android user interface (UI), MIUI V5, 5-inch full HD 1080p LCD touch display, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 2.3GHz processor, Adreno 330 450 MHz GPU, 2 GB RAM, 16 GB memory, 13MP rear camera, 2MP front camera and 3050mAh lithium-ion battery.

In the first quarter of 2014, 17.59 million smartphones were shipped into India as compared to 6.14 million in the same period of 2013, said IDC.