Chinese smartphone seller Xiaomi Inc is reportedly investing $1 billion for extending their video content archive. Recently touted as number three smartphone manufacturer, Xiaomi is all set to be a major player in the home entertainment industry with this investment.
Xiaomi has achieved great amount of success with their Mi series handsets including Mi2, Mi3 and Redmi 1S. All the three handsets had sold in millions across the Asia and still gets sold in bulk in countries including India.
The company is very optimistic about their TV unit - Xiaomi TV - and asserts to achieve major success in large markets like India. The Xiaomi TV is a huge 47-inch 3D TV with an Android-based set top box, Mi Box, which uses Xiaomi software and content.
The company has also announced the appointment of Chen Tong as vice-president in charge of content investment. Tong was previously associated with Chinese web portal Sina as vice-president for 17 years.
"Xiaomi TV's content must become even more rich and colourful, and become the weather vane leading the industry," the company wrote on its television division's official Weibo micro blog.
The move followed shortly after Jack Ma, founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, met with Hollywood executives for discussing the possibilities of co-producing upcoming movies.
China has 600 million users, who watch streamed video contents on smartphones, hand-helds or TV. To grab this portion of consumers, Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu have already invested. Now Xiaomi's entrance in this market has made it more interesting.
Xiaomi, the third largest smartphone maker after Samsung and Apple, has expressed to invest even more in the future. Contextually, China is the second largest movie market, after the USA.
