Xiaomi banned from selling handsets in India

The Delhi High Court has restrained Xiaomi from selling its handsets in India.

Flipkart, its distribution partner, also cannot sell handsets of the Chinese mobile maker in the country. The court has also restrained Xiaomi or its agents from making, assembling, importing or offering for sale its devices which are infringing the mobile phone technology patented by Ericsson.

Xiaomi earlier faced data related issues in India because Indian defense forces asked its employees not to use Xiaomi phones because they are hosting the Indian mobile users’ data in China. Xiaomi later promised that it will set up a data center in India to solve the confusion.

The patent in the case is said to have belonged to FRAND category for which Eriscsson had to charge a reasonable fee to licence them to any company

The HC order follows complaints from telecom network vendor Ericsson that alleged that Xiaomi is using a mobile technology patented by Ericsson.

According to the court order, Xiaomi cannot import, sell or advertise any handsets in India. However, it is not clear if the company will continue selling its Redmi 1S and Redmi Note that are currently up on Flipkart for sale.

After launching smartphones in India, Xiaomi started eating into the market share of Samsung, the Korean phone vendor.

It also issued summons and notice to Xiaomi and Flipkart and directed them to file an affidavit disclosing the number of devices – that are AMR, EDGE and 3G compliant – sold by them in India till date.