As the team behind a mobile-traffic source that connects programmatic buyers with on-device inventory, we’ve spent the last quarter re-benchmarking Mi Ads. The verdict: Xiaomi’s ad stack has the scale, surfaces and APIs to act as a primary Android growth channel in 2H-2025 — not a niche OEM detour. Here’s our operator’s view of what matters and how to activate it.
If you’re chasing lower CPIs without sacrificing post-install quality, the shortest path is still the first screen. Mi Ads sits inside HyperOS and system apps, which means high intent impressions few networks can replicate.
Scale & momentum
Xiaomi reports 718.8M global MAU as of March 2025 (up +9.2% YoY) with Internet Services revenue at RMB 9.1B in Q1 2025 — explicitly driven by ads. That gives Mi Ads both audience certainty and budget-level executive focus.
Crucially for international UA, Xiaomi’s own Mi Ads site states reach across 200+ countries/regions and 410M+ overseas active users, validating supply outside mainland China for global launches.
Where the impressions live
Mi Ads consolidates system surfaces like GetApps, Mi Video, Mi Browser, Mi Music and more, giving always-on reach beyond standard SDK supply. Lock-screen units (“Vertical Ads”) rolled out globally through 2024 and have already been used in the market — see the AEGEAN case that placed native creatives directly on Xiaomi lock screens. For new-device bursts, OOBE (out-of-box activation flow) puts app offers in front of users before the home screen.
Creative specs you can ship today
Production is straightforward: large images 1200×628 or 600×314 (≤500KB), videos 0–30s (≤10MB), titles ≤30 chars, descriptions ≤80, CTAs ≤15. Splash and wallpaper sizes are documented as well. We’ve standardized our creative pipelines around these specs to accelerate testing across icon, native, interstitial, rewarded and splash.
Buying rails & optimization
Two pieces make Mi Ads workable at scale:
- Reporting API exposes cost, impressions, clicks, activations and KPI columns by account/campaign/ad group/creative and geo, so we can stream performance into our BI and LTV models.
- Marketing API lets us create/edit campaigns and automate budgets/bids, which we wire to our bidder and incrementality tests.
On the bidding side, Xiaomi’s Smart Bidding (oCPC) can optimize beyond install — Post-link Metric Optimization targets D1 retention, registration or purchase. We typically switch to oCPC once early conversions stabilize and feed those postbacks back to Mi Ads to shorten learning.
Privacy, brand-safety & user control
Because these surfaces are OS-native, governance matters. Xiaomi publishes advertising policies and a MIUI/HyperOS privacy white paper covering app-usage data and ads; users can restrict personalized ads/usage collection in settings, and Mi Ads honors those signals at request time. That gives buyers a clean path to scale within modern privacy expectations.
How we activate Mi Ads for clients
We start broad across system placements (icon/native/interstitial) to gather signals, then bias budget to lock-screen + OOBE for bursts and newsfeed/native for cost-efficient scale. We ingest Reporting API into our LTV pipeline, flip oCPC once D1/D2 events exceed thresholds, and run quarterly lift tests to separate Mi Ads contribution from other Android channels — an approach aligned with Xiaomi’s own core-agency playbooks.
Bottom line
With 700M-plus MAU, proven international reach, OS-level surfaces, and real APIs for measurement and control, Mi Ads has crossed from “interesting OEM” to a core performance rail. Teams that wire Reporting/Marketing APIs, lean into lock-screen & OOBE, and optimize to post-install value will bank a durable CPI and ROAS advantage before peak season hits. Everyone else will be bidding for the same audiences — one tap later.
