Xiaomi to set up data centre in India by June

NEW DELHI: In a bid to address data security concerns, Chinese smartphone vendor Xiaomi will set up its data centre in the country by June this year, an investment that could run into millions of dollars.

The company, which entered India last year, was in news after the Indian Air Force and security solutions provider F-Secure raised concerns about data protection of user data.

“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,” Xiaomi Vice President Hugo Barra told PTI.

Though he declined to comment on the investment details, the data centre would be one of the significant investments the company is making in India.

Following global concerns about security of user data hosted on servers in China, the company partnered Amazon Web Services (AWS) to migrate data of its international (non-Chinese) customers to centres in the US and Singapore in October last year.

It had announced that it will set up a local data centre in India to cater to the domestic demand here.

Investments in data centre depends on the rack space that the company sets up or leases. According to analysts, it could be in millions of dollars.

As part of its plans for India, Xiaomi is also exploring options of contract manufacturing here, though that is still “12-18 months away”, Barra said.

Often called the ‘Apple of China’, Xiaomi will bring its smartphone – Redmi 2 – and tablet ‘MiPad’ to India on March 24, which will be sold through eCommerce major, Flipkart.

The Redmi 2 is a successor to Xiaomi’s Redmi 1S launched last year. Priced at Rs 6,999, the device will compete with 4G devices available in the market — Moto E (2nd gen), Lenovo A6000, Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G (Rs 9,999) and Yu Yureka (Rs 8,999).

Featuring a 4.7-inch display, the dual SIM Redmi 2 has a 1GB RAM and supports both TDD and FDD types of 4G services (high speed Internet) on both SIM slots.

It also has 8MP rear and 2MP front cameras, 2,200 mAh battery and 8GB memory (expandable up to 32GB).

“We will put about 30,000-40,000 devices for sale in the first round on March 24. We will also bring in a limited version of Redmi 2 soon featuring 2GB RAM and 16GB memory, but that will take some time,” Barra said.

The company also announced that it will bring its MiPad, which competes with Apple’s Mini, to the Indian market for Rs 12,999.

Featuring a 7.9-inch display, the WiFi-only device has a Nvidia Tegra K1 chipset, 2.2 Ghz quadcore processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB memory (expandable up to 128GB), 8MP rear and 5MP front cameras and 6,700 mAh battery.