Xiaomi to acquire key Nokia patents

New Delhi: In a strategic move, Chinese tech major Xiaomi and Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia on Wednesday signed an agreement for business collaboration and patent licencing where Xiaomi will acquire key patent assets from Nokia.

The multi-year patent agreement includes a cross license to each company`s cellular standard essential patents. The financials of the deal were not disclosed.

"As a company seeking to deliver more exciting technological innovations to the world, we are excited at the opportunity to work more closely with Nokia in future," said Lei Jun, Chairman and CEO of Xiaomi, in a statement.

Although not faring well globally including in China, Xiaomi is witnessing rapid growth in the Indian market and clocked over $1 billion in revenue in 2016.

Under the agreement, Nokia, which had recently revamped the feature phone market with its nostalgia-driven 3310, will provide network infrastructure equipment designed to deliver high capacity, low power requirements for large web providers and data centre operators.

Nokia and Xiaomi will work together on optical transport solutions for datacentre interconnect, IP routing based on Nokia`s newly announced `FP4` network processor and a data centre fabric solution.

"In addition to welcoming such a prominent global technology company to our family of patent licensees, we look forward to working together on a wide range of strategic projects," added Rajeev Suri, President and CEO of Nokia.

The companies have agreed to explore opportunities for further cooperation in areas such as Internet of Things (IoT), augmented and virtual reality and artificial intelligence (AI).

Beyond smartphones, Xiaomi is also a leading IOT player. The Mi Ecosystem IoT platform has crossed 60 million connected devices, and there are now over eight million daily active connected devices on the Mi Ecosystem platform.