Xiaomi asked to halt smartphones sales in India

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has asked Xiaomi to stop sales of its smatphones in the country, following telecom equipment maker Ericsson's allegations that the Chinese smartphone maker was infringing on its patents.

Manu Jain, head of the company's India operations, said: "We will comply with the Delhi high Court order. We have not been served the notice till now, but we know about the issue. If the court has asked us not to do it, we won't do it."

"We will explore all options including legal options on what can be done. Our lawyers and legal teams are working on it but we don't know how this will proceed. We will communicate and explain very openly to our users about what the order says, once we get it," Jain added.

The Delhi High Court has barred Xiaomi from selling, importing or advertising mobile phones in India until February 5, the next date of hearing.

Xiaomi, the third largest smartphone maker in the world, earlier stopped the sale of its Red Mi 1S and Red Mi Note smartphones.

Ericsson has claimed that Xiaomi was infringing upon eight of its registered standard essential patents.

Hugo Barra, head of international operations at Xiaomi, said in a Facebook post: "We have been forced to suspend sales in India until further notice due to an order passed by the Delhi High Court. As a law abiding company, we are investigating the matter carefully and assessing our legal options."

Xiaomi is selling Red Mi 1S and Red Mi Note in India via flash sales through e-commerce partner Flipkart.com and has received about 150,000 registrations for the Note.

Xiaomi has sold over 800,000 smartphones, including the popular Mi 3 and low cost Red Mi 1S since its launch in July. It has sold more than 50,000 units of the newly-launched third device Red Mi Note. The company has more than 1% share of the smartphone market and is steadily moving towards the 1-mn devices mark.