Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is migrating data of its non-Chinese customers from its servers in Beijing to Amazon AWS data centres in California (US) and Singapore as it looks to address rising privacy concerns.
The migration process, which began earlier this year, will be completed by the end of October and will benefit users in international markets - Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan, Xiaomi Vice President Hugo Barra said in a blogpost.
Mr. Barra added that this “better equips” Xiaomi to maintain high privacy standards and comply with local data protection regulations.
“This is a very high priority for Xiaomi as we expand into new markets over the next few years,” he said.
He added that users are already experiencing website speed boosts of at least 30 per cent in markets like Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and as much as 200 per cent in India.
The company has also began using Akamai’s global CDN infrastructure to speed up static page loads.
“In 2015, we are planning to take on a new challenge to further improve the performance of our services for users in large and fast-growing markets such as India and Brazil. In these markets, where Amazon AWS services aren’t yet available, we will be working with local data centre providers to set up our service infrastructure,” Mr. Barra said.
He added that once that has been completed, users in these markets will be much closer to their data and enjoy even faster speeds by connecting to local servers.
Xiaomi, in the past too, has faced user privacy concerns.
Earlier this year, security solutions firm F-Secure had, in a report, demonstrated how a Xiaomi Redmi 1S phone was sending data including the user’s IMEI, phone number, and phone numbers of contacts added to the phone book to a remote server.
Xiaomi had F-Secure, in its report, demonstrated how a Xiaomi Redmi 1S phone was sending data including the user’s IMEI, phone number, and phone numbers of contacts added to the phone book to a remote server.
Xiaomi had defended itself saying it does not store private information or data without permission.
Such concerns have also led to the Indian Air Force issuing an advisory asking its personnel not to use Xiaomi phones.
In India, the firm sells its devices through e-Commerce in partnership with Flipkart.
