Xiaomi clarifies not banned by PTA, sets to launch smartphones soon

XiaomiPK.com is not the official Xiaomi's website in Pakistan, claims the company

Days after the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) banned the sale of Chinese smartphone Xiaomi in the country, finally the company has spoken up for clearing the air.

In public notice published in major newspapers across the country, Xiaomi said it has not yet officially launched its smartphone in the country and PTA’s ban is specifically targeted at the unauthorised outlets selling Xiaomi products in Pakistan. The company aims to launch smartphones soon.

“We would like to clarify that Xiaomi has not officially launched the sale of its smartphones in Pakistan. The ban proposed to be enforced by PTA is specifically targeting the unauthorised resellers who had been unofficially selling Xiaomi products in Pakistan, without complying with the necessary legal formalities,” read the statement.



Xiaomi also claimed that the XiaomiPK.com is not the official Xiaomi website in Pakistan and not authorised by the company. “We have requested the domain web host to take down the illegal website being hosted on this domain, which is an infringement of Xiaomi’s intellectual property rights.”



At the time of reporting this story, the website was offline. However, it is not clear whether the site is temporarily offline or has been taken down permanently.

Further, the company claimed that it has a good working relationship with the PTA and hopes to be able sell Xiaomi products in Pakistan through partners.

Earlier, PTA said that Xiaomi had failed to seek approval from the authorities for selling smartphones in the country, making the sales illegal.

The statement comes a day after XiaomiPK alleged that the PTA had barred the sale and marketing of all Mi devices in the country.

Under the Telecom Act 1996 (section 29), no terminal equipment can be directly or indirectly connected with PSTN unless it has been type approved by the PTA, read the PTA’s statement.



“Type approval granted by PTA signifies that particular telecommunication equipment is approved for general sale and is suitable to connect with a specific public telecommunication network,” it added.

Further, the telecom regulator said that on April 8, 2016, M/s Cheezmall applied for the type approval for Xioami device model Mi4i. During the evaluation it was revealed that the Mi4i device has certain features which did not meet the required specifications and legal provisions, and, therefore, was not approved.

Subsequently, the applicant was asked to modify the phones before shipping them Pakistan, which they failed to do so. The authority maintained that the approval request for Xiaomi Mi4i is still pending, meaning they cannot be sold in Pakistan.

However, the PTA did not mention which features of the device were not in accordance with the law.

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