One of China’s leading smartphone vendors is apparently seeking to start operations in South Korea, if reports out of the Far East Asian country is to be believed. According to a report published by Business Korea on Monday, Xiaomi Technology, China’s second largest home-grown smartphone company, has already appointed a law firm in South Korea to handle all copyright related issues. The smartphone major is also said to be holding meetings with a number of tech startups in the country, as it continues to weigh its options about opening shop in the land of multinational technology giants like Samsung and LG. The publication is also quoting ‘industry sources’ in South Korea, to claim that the five-year-old Chinese company held an event in the capital city of Seoul on September 11th, to introduce MIUI 7 to potential partners in the country.
MIUI of course, is Xiaomi’s Android-based proprietary ROM which is also available for a number of non-Xiaomi devices. The company originally introduced the seventh generation of its custom ROM in China last month, before hosting an event in New Delhi at a later date to introduce the global version of the software with Google Play pre-loaded. For the uninitiated, the Chinese version of MIUI does not come with the Google Play Store, because of unresolved issues between Google and the Chinese authorities over censorship of Google’s services in the country. The ROM meant for the rest of the world however, does come with Google Play, as already mentioned earlier.
Xiaomi has been aggressively looking to foray into new markets of late, buoyed by the enthusiastic response it has received in countries like India and Brazil. The company’s VP of international affairs, Mr. Hugo Barra, has actually even gone on to claim in an interview earlier this year that Xiaomi will start selling its much talked-about handsets in the US within a year or two. Xiaomi is also said to be looking to enter the PC business next year, and has already introduced several smart gadgets in China in partnership with local manufacturers, as part of its ambitions of rolling out smart home solutions.