Xiaomi to monetise internet services in India

Xiaomi is planning to take on the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Paytm and Google Pay by monetising internet services in the Indian market.

The Chinese firm, counted amongst the top five most valuable technology start-ups, wants to generate revenue and profit from streaming of movies and videos, music, digital payment and applications, and will invest a significant proportion of the recent $0.5 billion (Rs 3,500 crore) fund infusion to expand into services.

The company wants to monetise streaming content from Mi Video and Mi Music, file transfer tool Mi Drop that has already hit 100 million downloads. Xiaomi has just launched Unified Payments Interface (UPI)-based payment application Mi Pay, and will soon commercialise Mi Credit, which is a marketplace from where consumers can get access to instant loan from partners like KreditBee and ZestMoney.

The company will also use the fund infusion from parent for offline expansion, open exclusive stores, localised R&D for India for devices, internet services and software, warehouses, service centres and to invest into manufacturing which will be done by partners.