Xiaomi MD hints at plans for bringing in-house internet services to India, replicating its Chinese business model

Xiaomi India managing director Manu Jain revealed plans for pushing the company towards internet services. [caption id=“attachment_3864175” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Xiaomi logo. Reuters[/caption] Speaking to The Economic Times (ET), Jain stated that the company intends to replicate its China model here by “monetising a host of services such as finance and entertainment.” Xiaomi’s business model is interesting because the company aims to sell devices almost at cost. This leaves a very small profit margin. As a 2014 Bloomberg report suggests, the company profits from selling smart home products and internet-based services such as online videos and themes. Xiaomi sees itself as a company delivering software and services to its hardware. In an interview with GigaOm, Xiaomi’s ex-VP Hugo Barra had stated, “We are an internet and a software company much more than … a hardware company.” Indicating that it took Xiaomi over seven years to establish itself as an internet-company in its home country of China, Jain told ET that replicating that model in India would take a while. He did add that plans for this were already in place and that the company was “carefully evaluating on when to launch these services.” As per a report in June this year, Xiaomi is the second-highest selling smartphone vendor in India, second only to Samsung. The company also features in the top 5 global smartphone vendor shipments, according to various reports.