The Silicon Review ^Asia

Xiaomi, the company which has overtaken Samsung in the smartphone business now intends to monetize internet services in India. The move by the company will put them in a position where they would compete with the likes of Spotify, Netflix, Amazon Prime,and Google Pay.

As one of the top 5 most valuable tech startups in the world, Xiaomi aims to boost its revenue and profits from digital contents like streaming music and movies along with applications and payments. The company will also inject a significant proportion from its newest fundings worth Rs.3,500 crores to introduce the services. People familiar to the matter said.

According to Xiaomi, it has three financial pillars worldwide- services, devices,and retail—and the final one is yet to be monetized in India. Designing and selling hardware is only 50 percent of the job for the company. The rest of the remaining job for the company is to secure customer engagement and sell internet services to boost growth.

The company is looking to monetize streaming content from its Video and music platform and file transfer tool which already has 100million downloads. Recently, it introduced Mi-Pay, (UPI)–based payment application and will soon launch a credit feature called Mi Credit where consumers can avail short term and long term loans from partners such as KreditBee and ZestMoney.

Latest statistics suggest that the $500-million video streaming market in India is set to touch $5 billion by 2023 with some 650 million users.