Rumor: Xiaomi Valued at $4 Billion, Snags New Investment

According to “reports” — perhaps not the most reliable source ever — Xiaomi has accepted a major strategic investment from Tencent. That story has already been denied by Xiaomi, but with it have come perhaps more credible rumors that the company has accepted another round of investment from DST. This new investment would put Xiaomi’s value at an estimated $4 billion, but the news hasn’t yet been confirmed or denied by Xiaomi.

Things have been going quite well for Xiaomi since the launch of its M1 phone last year. Although there have been murmors of less-than-satisfactory customer service and a few build quality issues, the Chinese market has shown intense enthusiasm for the M1; so much so that this winter Xiaomi also entered into a partnership with China Unicom to distribute additional phones via that company.

Does that make it worth four billion dollars? My colleague Willis wrote last month about how it was at least a billion dollar company. I’m not sure. But for what it’s worth, I’ve heard a lot of people over the last year suggest they’d like to invest in Xiaomi — many seem to agree the company is onto something. And for what it’s worth, I haven’t experienced any problems with my M1 handset since I bought one last December (despite having inadvertently knocked it off our table and onto the floor too many times to count). But that’s all anecdotal. The number does seem a bit high…

@niubi @ChinaGeeks If so, that values Xiaomi at almost half of Nokia (9.77B) and about 80% of RIM (5.26B).

— Will Moss (@imagethief) June 5, 2012

What do you think? Xiaomi is certainly doing well, but is the company really worth four billion dollars?

[via Sina Tech]