Bloomberg reported on June 3 that Xiaomi has appointed Alvin TSE as the new head of its Indian business because the Chinese smartphone company has met government challenges in its second largest user market. Xiaomi said that TSE, a former senior executive of Xiaomi Indonesia, would take over as the general manager of the company's Indian department, but did not give a precise timetable.
The appointment of TSE coincides with a new crisis of Xiaomi in the Indian market. In April this year, Xiaomi India branch was confiscated more than 700 million US dollars by the Indian government for no reason. Since then, this move has been shelved pending the final ruling of the court.
According to the Law Enforcement Bureau of India, Xiaomi illegally transferred funds to three foreign entities in the name of royalties, and was therefore frozen $725million in assets in April. However, after Xiaomi raised an objection to the assets freeze, the Indian court shelved the decision. According to Reuters, Xiaomi said in its court documents that the patent fees have been paid to Qualcomm and other companies, and have been disclosed to the Indian authorities. Xiaomi thinks that the Indian authorities are targeting Chinese companies, while Bloomberg reported at the end of May that the Indian enterprise affairs department is investigating ZTE and vivo for suspected financial misconduct.
It is reported that before the assets were frozen, Xiaomi's offices and production facilities were raided in December 2021. In January, the Indian government asked Xiaomi to pay US $84.5 million for suspected import tax evasion. At present, the momentum of Xiaomi in India seems to be declining. IDC data shows that although it has maintained the first position in the Indian smartphone market since 2018, the gap between its market share and that of Samsung Electronics has been narrowing recently.