Xiaomi Has World’s Largest IoT Platform: Manu Jain

Xiaomi of China is known for making smartphones in India, but the company says it also hosts the world’s largest internet of things (IoT) platform.

“The first product we built was actually not a smartphone, but an internet service, in our operating system, called MiUI,” said Manu Jain, CEO and Global VP, Xiaomi.

Xiaomi today has 132 million connected devices, through its smart shoes, scooters, cycles, televisions, fitness bands, and, of course, phones.

The company, however, keeps smartphones at the centre of its array of products. According to Jain, it makes products around the phones, which people use along with smartphones. Eventually, Xiaomi decides to take a shot at producing other consumer products that could be made smart, including air conditioners, fridges and televisions.

Xiaomi also makes products in the lifestyle and fashion category, and though not all of them are smart yet, the plan is to eventually make them all smart.

The company’s TVs come with built-in content, which customers can stream without requiring a cable connection. Xiaomi also sells products such as smart weighing scales, smart routers, fitness bands, a smart air purifier, smart security cameras and more in the country.

Interestingly, while the firm sells a lot of products as part of its ecosystem, it manufactures only four of them— smartphones, laptops, TVs and routers. Everything else is made by companies Xiaomi has invested in, or bought, which it calls its “ecosystem companies”.

Jain said that of the 200 companies in its ecosystem, only about 50-80 companies have launched products so far. There are over 100 companies that are still in stealth mode and yet to launch products. Xiaomi has inputs in design and provides software, but the implementation is done by the firms.―Livemint