Xiaomi is empowering brands to connect with people

Starting business in 2010 selling smartphones, Xiaomi now offers a complete portfolio of connected devices. The company officially filed an application for its Hong Kong IPO earlier in the year, and has continued to expand its global presence, diversifying its product roster to include more smart home devices and lifestyle products.

Mi Home, for one, has made the smartphone the centre of Xiaomi’s ecosystem. Despite this, the company does not position itself as a hardware vendor, but an internet service company. Its offering in that vein includes a custom android-based system—MIUI—that has already reached 300 million users around the world. With this, the company is trying to push its own OTT content, which includes music and video.

The MIOT Ecosystem

While Xiaomi as whole is expanding from android phones into internet-connected hardware, MIUI is also evolving to become an integrated cross-platform system and global powerhouse, preloaded in connected Xiaomi devices, supporting more than 55 languages across 142 countries.

With over 115 million devices connected through Xiamoi’s IoT platform, the company now has over 10 million daily active users worldwide, with fans eagerly awaiting every update for their Mi phone’s software. This is a big opportunity for brands, who can leverage the company’s user base to gain access to Xiaomi users and fans. What’s more, Xiaomi is also in the business of big data, collecting from numerous sources within its own system to analyse consumer trends and needs, subsequently helping marketers and advertisers to strategically leverage the MIUI platform to promote consumer engagement and loyalty.

Building meaningful connections

Q Chen, VGM of advertising and sales department, MIUI, Xiaomi Inc. weighed in on his business’ role in connecting mobile tech, brands, and consumers on the move, “After being able to reach your target audiences, you have to engage with them. To achieve this, you have to make sure that the content is of real value to them. That means connecting people to what they’re looking for in realtime and providing relevant information when they need it.”

Case in point—in China, Xiaomi has used its resources to support Nestlé in exploring digital nutrition. MIUI’s collaboration focuses on combining dietary evaluation with smart technology to help Chinese consumers improve their diet. The platform allows its users to click and input their daily meal intake and import data about their weight, blood pressure, sleep and exercise through MIUI’s smart wearable devices. Through the platform, MIUI enables Nestlé to both engage with daily consumers among the middle-aged and elderly in China, and better understand their consumers through relevant data.

According to Chen, the MIUI platform helps Nestlé China capture any and all data streaming into its business. Through analytics and algorithms, the platform generates nutrition reports acting as a snapshot of each individual’s health condition. “With the ability to gauge customer needs and satisfaction through analytics, Nestlé China can give customers what they want” said Chen. He went on, “MIUI also helps Nestlé China identify insight for new business opportunities. With the insight uncovered from the report, Nestlé can create new products to meet customers’ needs and move towards smarter and faster business decisions.”