Well, it seems India’s biggest mobile vendor (in terms of sale) need to reinstall Android OS on every mobile they have sold and in the making. Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi will soon release an update to its flavour of Android OS or the MIUI to adhere to the Indian government’s ban on a dozen of Chinese apps.
Those who have missed (chances are less) last month India government banned 59 Chinese mobile apps which also include a few Xiaomi mobile apps. The banned Xiaomi app include Mi Browser Pro, which is the default mobile browser app in a Xioami/Redmi/Mi smartphone. Besides, Mi Community app, a discussion forum for Mi fans, was also banned in India.
After a month of uncertainty/talks, Xiaomi India is finally complying with the Indian government ban. In an official tweet from the company head, Manu Jain – they are developing a new version of MIUI (India specific android OS) that will be built without pre-installation of any of the blocked apps.
Those who own a Xiaomi/Redmi/Mi smartphones knows that the company pre-installs a dozen of its own and third-party apps in its phones. Usually, most of these apps add some sort of value and later few just for ads.
Company will roll out this new MIUI, which removes those banned Chinese apps for almost every Xioami/Redmi/Mi smartphone sold in India, in a phased manner over the next few weeks.
Jain said the company has always upheld user privacy and security as the top priority for all their devices. They continue to comply and adhere to all data privacy and security requirements under Indian law. Most importantly, according to him, the company has been storing all data of Indian users in servers located in India since 2018.
“Since 2018, 100 per cent of data from Indian user is stored on servers located in India and none of this data is shared with anyone outside of India“.
Xiaomi has also clarified that none of the banned mobile apps is made available or pre-installed on any newly launched or upcoming Xiaomi phones in India. These include the newly launched Redmi Note 9 and Redmi 9 Prime.