Xiaomi migrating to international servers to boost global expansion

Xiaomi, the Chinese mobile company that’s now China’s most valuable startup by a mile, announced another step in its plan for world domination today: its servers are going global. Xiaomi VP Hugo Barra announced the company’s plans via Facebook, and he says the server globalization will come in three phases:

• Work to migrate the company’s ecommerce platforms from Beijing data centers to Amazon AWS data centers in California and Singapore has already begun and should be completed by the end of this month.
• Migration of MIUI services, including Mi Account, Cloud Messaging and Mi Cloud services, from Beijing to AWS servers in Oregon and Singapore will be completed by the end of 2014.
• Xiaomi plans to further expand with local servers beginning in 2015 in areas where Amazon AWS services aren’t available, like markets in Brazil and India.

According to Barra, the reason for the move to servers outside of Beijing is primarily to optimize Xiaomi’s user experience, especially for its customers outside of China. Barra says that its ecommerce migration has already resulted in loading speed boosts of over 200% for customers in India as well as 30% boosts for users in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Similarly, the move of MIUI services to data centers outside of China is also expected to cut latency significantly for international users accessing those services.

But the move probably also has other implications. To begin with, it may assuage fears about Xiaomi’s user data security after the controversy this summer.

After security firm F-Secure released a report saying that a lot of Xiaomi user data, including text messages, was being sent to servers in Beijing, Xiaomi offered users a way to opt out. But it’s clear that some users still don’t feel comfortable with their info being stored in Beijing, and this global server migration should ensure that doesn’t happen anymore. Once MIUI services outside of China are served by Xiaomi’s global servers, there will be no reason for your Xiaomi phone to connect to servers in Beijing.

The move also suggests something pretty obvious: Xiaomi isn’t done with its global expansion plans. Barra didn’t say anything specific in his post, but it stands to reason that the highly successful company plans to keep the train rolling by further expanding into new markets, and faster international server architecture will give the company the platform it needs to do that effectively. Especially given that the company seems committed to its direct-and-limited online sales model, where phones are only available on its site during limited windows, the company will need fast and resilient servers to withstand the traffic deluge they’re likely to be met with when new phone models go on sale.

(Source: Hugo Barra’s Facebook)