Xiaomi open to moving its servers to India: report

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is reported to have expressed willingness to move its servers to India, but said for that its cloud service partner should set up base in India.

Xiaomi depends on Amazon Web Service (AWS) servers for cloud service and AWS already has servers in India. It is, however, not known whether these servers will be used to offer cloud service to Xiaomi in India.

''All our servers are sitting on AWS in Singapore and US. If AWS moves to India, we would be happy to work with them," The Economic Times quoted Manu Kumar Jain, VP and MD of Xiaomi's India operations, said.

Xiaomi, the second-largest cell phone seller in India after Samsung, has been witnessing a sharp growth in volumes on the back of devices such as Redmi 4, Redmi Note 4 and Mi Max2 and the market is important for Xiaomi.

The company, which claims a share of around 17 per cent in the Indian smartphone market, also announced the launch of its first Google powered Android One smartphone called the Mi A1 in India.

Xiaomi's India revenues have crossed $1 billion and with sale zooming, the company is now planning to open new factories.

Currently, Xiaomi produces 5 million devices, on a quarterly basis, against quarterly sales of 4.8 million pieces, at its two factories in Andhra Pradesh .

"India is one of our most critical markets and business here has been growing very strongly. Sales have grown by 4X (January-June 2017), and we are over-achieving our targets," The Times of India quoted Jain as saying ahead of the launch of a new device, MiA1, in partnership with Google (priced at Rs14,999).

"Our revenue crossed the billion-dollar mark in 2016, and we expect to go over two billion dollars this year on the back of strong sales," the Xiaomi India head said.

The company, -which has invested over $500 million in India along with retail, distribution and other partners, sold 3.8 million devices in the first quarter (January-March) of this year, and followed it up with 4.8 million units in the second quarter (April-June).

"To match the demand, we are now having a quarterly production run of 5 million units. This needs to go up. We are now exploring plans to set up new factories."

Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn, Xiaomi's partner in India, has set up two factories for the company at Sri City in Andhra Pradesh. "We are open to exploring other geographies for the new factories. Needless to say, whatever we will build now will be much bigger and keeping in mind the long-term growth perspective," Jain said.

Xiaomi, which began operations in India around three years ago, has been witnessing a sharp growth in volumes on the back of devices such as Redmi 4, Redmi Note 4 and Mi Max2. The company is the second-largest phone seller in the country, behind only Samsung, and claims a market share of around 17 per cent.