Mumbai: Alibaba Group is in talks with India’s Micromax Informatics to buy an about 20 per cent stake in the smartphone maker, helping the Chinese e-commerce giant expand in one of the world’s fastest growing markets for the devices, sources said.The deal, if completed, would see Alibaba investing as much as $1.2 billion in Micromax, the second largest smartphone brand in India by sales, at up to $6 billion.
India is the world’s third largest smartphone market and was the fastest growing in the Asia Paci-fic in the third quarter of last year, accor-ding to International Data Corporation. Micromax and Alibaba began talks on the stake sale after discussions with investors led by Japanese telecoms firm Softbank Corp stalled over differences in valuations, the sources said.
“The Softbank talks are not over, but it’ll be hard to get back on track.” Softbank is the largest shareholder in Alibaba. The sources said Alibaba wants to use the Mic-romax deal to tap into the boom in the number of internet users in India.
