Xiaomi has signed a deal with Microsoft to preload Office and Skype on Xiaomi devices. The company is also acquiring 1500 Microsoft patents. Starting in September 2016, Xiaomi's Android devices, including Mi 5, Mi Max, Mi 4s, Redmi Note 3 and Redmi 3, will have Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Skype applications pre-installed on them. It's worth noting that Xiaomi has a VoIP service of its own called Mi Voice, which incidentally had made an appearance on Indian handsets, in March 2016, though it still wasn't working at the time. In 2015, Xiaomi had a market share of 15% in China, as per data released by IDC. Apparently, in the month of April this year, Xiaomi's market share went up to 26% in China. Note that this is based on just the sales figure of April and isn't confirmed yet. However, what it does illustrate is that the Chinese smartphone market is becoming increasingly saturated, with hardly any room to manoeuvre further. Thus, the acquisition of Microsoft patents will allow Xiaomi to push beyond China, developing markets, and into markets like the US, which it has been eyeing for some time now. Late last year, Xiaomi had signed a 3G and 4G China patent license agreement with Qualcomm. As part of the deal, Xiaomi will be able to develop, manufacture and sell 3G (WCDMA and CDMA2000) and 4G, including 3-mode (LTE-TDD, TD-SCDMA and GSM) complete devices. The patent license is royalty-bearing. Also Read: Xiaomi’s thin patent portfolio causes it to run into patent litigations –…
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