Xiaomi, through its subsidiary Xiaomi H.K. Ltd, announced it has raised $1 billion in debt financing from 18 banks across Europe, the Middle East, India, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, with Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley coordinating the three-year loan arrangement.
The Chinese tech giant, a popular smartphone brand across a number of countries in Asia, has raised around $1.45 billion in equity financing from some notable names, including Qualcomm Ventures and IDG Capital. It also revealed that it had secured another three-year syndicated loan in 2014.
“The global syndicate of top-tier banks is a strong endorsement of Xiaomi by the international capital markets,” noted Xiaomi’s chief financial officer, Shou Zi Chew.
With $1 billion more in the bank, founder and CEO Lei Jun added that pursuing more offline retail channels (i.e. brick-and-mortar stores) is among the company’s top priorities for development.
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Xiaomi has emerged as a major force in the mobile phone realm since its first foray back in 2011, and although it has continued to flirt with the international masses through purported “global launch events,” its smartphones have largely been restricted to China, India, and a handful of other Asian markets. Jun revealed last month that Xiaomi shipped 23.16 million smartphones in Q2 2017, up 70 percent from the previous quarter and setting a new record for the company.
Though Xiaomi is often asked whether it plans to launch its smartphones more broadly, including in the U.S., the company has generally remained tight-lipped, though it has hinted that it may consider expanding in the future.
Beijing-based Xiaomi has long branched out into other products and services — sometimes through backing other startups — including self-balancing scooters, tablets, fitness bands, routers, cloud storage, power banks, and air purifiers. Xiaomi has also sold accessories in the U.S. and Europe for a couple of years already, and last October it partnered with Google to launch the $69 Mi Box Android TV set-top box in the U.S.
