Ratan Tata buys stake in China’s Xiaomi

Lei Jun, founder and CEO of Xiaomi, said on the company's Facebook page: "Mr. Tata is one of the most well-respected business leaders in the world. An investment by him is an affirmation of the strategy we have undertaken in India so far. This is just the start of an exciting journey, and we are looking forward to bringing more products into India."

Xiaomi entered the Indian market in July of last year, selling its Mi3 smart phone in an exclusive partnership with e-commerce marketplace Flipkart. However, early success - the company cleared one million units in the first five months - was held up by a patent complaint by Ericsson. Sales were suspended pending a court ruling that Xiaomi could market devices with Qualcomm's chipsets.

Last week, Xiaomi unveiled a Mi4i handset that supports six Indian languages and sells for INR12,999 ($204).

According to consultancy firm IDC, Xiaomi had a 4% share of India's smart phone market in the fourth quarter last year. Market leader Samsung had 22%, followed by Indian vendors Micromax, Intex and Lava.

Globally, Xiaomi sold 61.12 million smart phones in 2014, more than treble of the 2013 figure, while gross income jumped 135% year-on-year to RMB74.3 billion ($12 billion).

The Chinese smart phone maker's last round of funding came in December 2014 when it raised $1.1 billion at a $45 billion valuation. The round was led by Hong Kong-based All-Stars Investment, with participation from DST Global, Singapore's GIC Private, Hopu Investment Management and Yunfeng Capital.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• South Asia
• Technology
• Consumer
• China
• India
• Xiaomi
• Technology
• Growth capital
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• TMT