Alibaba, Chinese e-commerce firm is going to buy a stake in India’s major smartphone maker, Micromax. The e-commerce giant is believed pick up a 20 percent stake in Micromax. If the deal completes, Alibaba will be investing as much as $1.2 billion in Micromax. It makes sense considering the fact that India is world’s third largest smartphone market and was the fastest growing in the Asia Pacific region in the third quarter of last year and Micromax is second largest smartphone brand in the country, challenging Korea’s giant, Samsung by sales. According to Reuters secret sources, Alibaba would use Micromax as a tool to get its online sales business into the subcontinent. Alibaba’s mobile payments software solutions like Alipay to come pre-installed in Micromax devices. But it is all speculations, rumors at this time. It does makes sense though.
As the stats say, India is emerging as a market for smartphones huge enough to get attraction from all over the world’s phone makers. Smartphone makers giants are making a way to the country to sell its offerings and it promotes the competition resulting in innovation. The funding is aimed at helping Micromax raise capital as it expands into new business segments including personal computing.
We currently do not have any more information about the changes to be done, but we will keep you up to date as soon as we do.
Thank you Reuters for providing us with this information.
Image courtesy of CNBC.
