Xiaomi to launch Indian data centre in world’s third-largest smartphone market
Fri 13 Mar 2015
Xiaomi, the leading Chinese smartphone company, has announced that it plans to open a data centre in India by June this year to support its expansion into the Indian market.
According to the Beijing-based firm the move responds to Indian security concerns over the protection of user data, raised by the Indian Air Force and security services provider F-Secure.
“We had an infrastructure team coming in from China and they are talking to various people here. By June, we should have a data centre in place here,” said Xiaomi vice president Hugo Barra.
No details have been given regarding the total investment for the project, but this will be reflected in the setup and lease of rack space.
Xiaomi entered the Indian market in July last year, and sold over one million handsets within its first five months in the country. Despite facing tough domestic competition for price per unit, Barra insisted that overall product experience would be prioritised over cheap manufacturing.
“We are not here to sell cheap devices. We are here to sell amazing product value. Amazing things, incredibly engineered […] both hardware and software— for an amazing price,” said Barra.
The company is also on the lookout to setup a number of key partnerships with Indian upstarts and application developers to build services directly relevant to the national market to integrate with its new product releases.
Xiaomi launched the Redmi 1S, customised for the Indian market, on Thursday. It will be prices at Rs. 6,999 and will be available from March 24th through the e-commerce site Flipkart.
To push the brand across India, the world’s third-larget smartphone market, Xiaomi also plan to open 100 nationwide stores over the course of 2015. Its devices however will remain solely available online and will not be ‘for sale’ at these stores.
