Xiaomi’s Eugene Lu on why OEM media is gaining ground in Southeast Asia

OEM (original equipment manufacturer) media is emerging as a more prominent supply path in Southeast Asia’s programmatic market, as advertisers push for greater transparency, stronger signals and more control over how they reach audiences.

Positioned at the intersection of hardware, software and user experience, device manufacturers are increasingly acting as gateways to consumers — even before a user opens an app.

For Xiaomi, this evolution is well underway. With inventory spanning smartphones, tablets and CTVs, the company reaches 754.1 million monthly active users (MAU) on mobile — representing a 13.3% global market share — and recently reclaimed the top spot in SEA’s smartphone market. Its hybrid supply model — anchored by more than 30 owned-and-operated apps and monetized via the Xiaomi Ad Exchange — is seeing growing programmatic demand as advertisers prioritize more direct, high-quality supply paths, the company told The Current.

Part of that demand is being driven by Xiaomi’s adoption of OpenPath, The Trade Desk’s solution connecting advertisers directly to premium publishers.

The Current spoke with Eugene Lu, global head of advertising sales at Xiaomi International Internet Business (IIB), about what’s driving the company’s programmatic growth, why OEM inventory is gaining traction in SEA and why device-level media could play a defining role in the future of the open internet.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Across SEA, what are advertisers increasingly asking for from publishers?

The SEA market is fascinating because it’s mobile-first and incredibly diverse. What we’re hearing most often now is a call for certainty. Advertisers are moving beyond the “Wild West” of web and app inventory and asking for three specific things: brand safety, deterministic signals and cross-device unity.

First, they want to know their ads are appearing in high-quality, measurable environments. Second, they are hungry for better targeting — they want to reach a specific user in Jakarta or Bangkok with the same precision they’d have in New York.

And finally, there’s a massive focus on frequency management across screens. Advertisers don’t want to bombard a user on their phone and then again on their TV without any coordination. They are looking for publishers who can offer a unified view of the consumer across all touchpoints. That’s where we see a huge opportunity.

What’s driving Xiaomi IIB’s recent programmatic growth?

Several key factors are contributing to this growth.

On the mobile side, we’ve been expanding both the diversity and quality of our demand, bringing in strong new budgets across verticals like gaming, e-commerce and brand campaigns. At the same time, we continue to enhance our exchange platform’s technical capabilities and data signals. Features like deal IDs, query signals, improved request parameters and enhanced format flexibility for video inventory are helping buyers optimize their bidding strategies and unlock more value from our inventory.

On the CTV side, growth is largely fueled by increasing brand demand for premium, big-screen environments. Additionally, we’ve invested in strengthening our signal pass-through to improve campaign measurement and targeting.

What was behind your decision to adopt OpenPath?

Our decision to adopt OpenPath was driven by the opportunity to build a more direct and efficient connection with demand from The Trade Desk, particularly as brand advertisers increasingly look for high-quality, transparent supply paths.

By working with OpenPath, we can provide advertisers with more direct access to this premium supply, helping them reach audiences in brand-safe, high-impact formats.

From a CTV perspective, integrating with OpenPath has also brought meaningful optimizations across the supply chain by reducing unnecessary intermediaries. That helps improve auction efficiency, bid response rates and overall fill-rate. At the same time, this more streamlined setup enhances transparency and log-level data consistency, enabling better alignment in reporting and faster troubleshooting on discrepancies.

A more direct integration allows us to optimize signal transmission — such as device-level data and contextual signals — which supports more accurate targeting and improves campaign performance. We have already begun collaborating on CTV inventory and are gradually expanding cooperation across mobile and published gaming inventory.

How does OEM inventory fit within the broader open internet alongside traditional publishers?

What truly sets us apart is our control over the “first mile” of the user journey. Before a user even opens an app, they interact with the system via the lock screen, App Finder or [our quick-access panel] App Vault -1 screen. These are high-frequency, high-intent moments.

We saw this play out recently with a major regional e-commerce player. They used our system-level entry points during a shopping festival to reengage users who hadn’t opened their app in a while. Because we sit at the OS level, we could trigger that “first-look” interaction, which led to a massive uplift in conversions.

When you combine that “on-device” nature with our native formats — like app icons or [our content-focused UI] PatchWall home screen placements on CTV — you get an environment that doesn’t just show an ad, it facilitates a discovery.

Looking ahead, what role do you see OEM ecosystems playing in the long-term sustainability of the open internet?

In a world without cookies and with increasing fragmentation, the OEM ecosystem becomes the “source of truth.” In regions like SEA, Xiaomi provides a unified, transparent gateway that traditional software-based publishers just can’t replicate. By owning the hardware, we can guarantee brand safety and offer a direct, clean supply path.

Moving forward, I don’t see us as just a traffic source. We are becoming a long-term infrastructure partner. Our goal is to bridge the gap between global brand standards and local market execution. We want to provide the certainty that allows the open internet to remain vibrant and transparent. We’re here to ensure that as the landscape shifts, advertisers always have a direct, high-performing path to reach their audience.

The Current is owned and operated by The Trade Desk, Inc.