Xiaomi Launches Lending Product Mi Credit In India

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has launched its credit line in India with its product Mi Credit in partnership with lending platform KrazyBee.

Financial loan providers are listed on Mi Credit, and Xiaomi users can log onto the platform to apply for quick loans.

Mi Credit is available only for MIUI users where KreditBee is offering loans starting from $14.66 (INR 1,000) up to $1466.11 (INR 1 Lakh).

Manu Jain, Vice President, Xiaomi and Managing Director, Xiaomi India said, “The connectivity between our devices and the seamless integration between hardware and internet services enable us to provide our users with better user experience. Mi Credit is another big step in bringing an important internet service to India and we trust that our users would be able to truly benefit as the service becomes more sophisticated.”

The company claims that the loan can be initiated in less than 10 minutes with a simple KYC verification. All verification and user information input is done on partner platforms, with Mi Credit currently only listing all agents.

In a report, ET claimed that the loan will be extended at 3% interest per month and focusses on salaried professionals.

The head of an alternative lending company told ET, “Xioami has lending products across segments in China, and it will look to replicate some of them here as well.”

Xiaomi Expanding Growth In India

Since its entry in 2014, India has proven to be a gold mine for Xiaomi. Most recently, in its IPO filings in Hong Kong, the company highlighted that India contributed 32% to its total global revenue of $18 Bn in 2017 via three of its top five sales channels.

The filings also indicate that the company was India’s largest smartphone maker with a 31.1% share, followed by Samsung at 26.2% share in the quarter ended March 2018.

Xiaomi is currently one of the leading smartphone brands in the country after taking over South Korean giant Samsung, as announced by Counterpoint and Canalys in January.

Xiaomi led a funding round of $8 Mn in KrazyBee in October 2017. Further, it has plans to invest $1 Bn in 100 Indian startups over the next five years.

Also, ZestMoney is suggested to be in talks to raise $20 Mn funding from Xiaomi with participation from its existing investors including PayU. In this light, the companies have been talking about an investment which will enable a closer integration between them to push sales on Mi.com.

India today is the second biggest market for Xiaomi after China, where Xiaomi is also selling other products such as power banks, smartwatches, air purifiers, water purifiers, etc.

A NASSCOM report earlier estimated that the Indian fintech software market would touch $2.4 Bn by 2020, from the current $1.2 Bn.

Overall, according to the Inc42 DataLabs Indian Startup Funding report 2017, the Indian fintech industry has received $3.01 Bn across 111 deals in 2017. The sector continues to witness growth, as according to the Indian Tech Startup Funding Q1 2018 report, fintech as a sector witnessed the highest funding in the first quarter.

With its eyes set on an IPO, Xiaomi’s plans to expand its portfolio along with its investment bucket make it seem like the company may have a promising future in the Indian market.

Update: May 24, 2018: 12:15

In the earlier version of the story based on a report of Economic Times, the lending product was named ‘CreditBee’, which is not correct. In an official statement, Xiaomi informed Inc42 that the lending product is Mi Credit and the story has been updated to that effect.