(Yicai Global) March 20 -- Xiaomi is looking to turn the page to a time after the Covid-19 outbreak. The Chinese tech giant has reopened all of its mainland stores to sell its latest Mi 10 smartphone model, which was launched during what will probably turn out to be the worst month of this year.

All of Xiaomi's 1,800 retail stores had reopened as of yesterday, and none of the nearly 2,000 employees at the firm's regional headquarters in Wuhan have gotten sick, according to the company. Meanwhile, four-fifths of its production, as well as its research and development capacity have been restored.

Late January and the month of February were difficult for the Beijing-based company as it had, like other peers, closed stores while watching the usually busy shopping period of Chinese New Year go by, Wang Xiang, senior vice president for international business, said at an online conference yesterday.

Strategy Analytics predicts that China's smartphone sales will likely have fallen 30 percent in the first quarter of this year due to the virus outbreak, he added. But the latest statistics show that the recovery is speeding up, Wang said.

"The company is generally confident about the future because the epidemic is temporary, although it has recently become quite severe in European countries," Wang said.

Often dubbed China's Apple, Xiaomi may trail Huawei Technologies, Oppo Mobile Telecommunications, and Apple on its home turf but is big abroad. The phone maker has ranked first in India for the past 10 quarters and in Spain, its market share is the second biggest, Wang said. 

The firm debuted its latest four-camera handset Mi 10 on Feb. 13 via a live-streamed event. It had found enough factory workers to satisfy the minimum manufacturing demand in the run-up to the release, Wang said.

Editor: Emmi Laine