Xiaomi to Invest $1 Billion in Indian Startups Over Five Years

Xiaomi will be investing $1 billion in 100 startups in India in the coming 5 years. The Chinese company aims at creating an ‘ecosystem of apps’ across its brand of smartphones as said by Lei Jun, Founder, and CEO, in an interview.

Lei further revealed information on how they are to go about this initiative. Xiaomi and its sister company Shunwei Capital have already purchased stakes in 6 internet companies of India that includes KrazyBee and Hungama.

Additional investments are being planned by the Chinese brand for India, on businesses like financial tech, content, hyperlocal services that involve mobile phone repairing as well as manufacturing. The entire project looks to increment the presently growing mobile internet adoption in the country.

“We will basically replicate the most successful ecosystem business model of China in India. We will have all types of services and products and integrate them. That is the Xiaomi business model. We focus on a few key things and everything else, we let our partners provide. We’ve reached just a huge scale in seven years because of this partnership/affiliation model,” said Lei.

Xiaomi is one of the leading private tech companies in the world and is the third most significant Chinese investor in India after Alibaba and Tencent. Xiaomi’s aforementioned investment targets consist of mobile internet usage expansion and India has an ideal market to make the brand ‘one of the most prolific internet investors in India.’

Indian smartphone market is based on the hyped constant lookout for next new things among the shoppers. Xiaomi’s latest move for the country comprises of the ambition to provide value-for-money phones and services while it is to go up against the rivals like Samsung, Oppo, Vivo, and others.

In this regard, Lei was quoted, “Any apps that increase the frequency of usage of smartphones – we are interested in this. As long as it is related to the acceleration of mobile internet. We only pick minority stakes. The purpose is to work closely (on the business side) with these companies.”

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