Chinese firm Gionee files for bankruptcy

New Delhi: In yet another Chinese smartphone company going bust, a second-tier Chinese smartphone maker Gionee, which owes 20.2 billion Chinese Yuan (nearly $3 billion) to 648 creditors, has officially filed for bankruptcy.

According to media reports, a court in Shenzhen has accepted the Gionee application for liquidation bankruptcy. A report in The South China Morning Post last month said that the founder of Shenzhen-based Gionee admitted he may have used company assets to gamble at a Hong Kong-listed casino in Saipan.

In an interview, Liu Lirong, Gionee's Chairman and Chief Executive, "admitted that Gionee's total debts amount to 17 billion yuan, with 10 billion yuan of this owed to banks, 5 billion yuan to upstream suppliers and about 2 billion to advertising agencies". When asked how much he lost gambling, Liu said, "a bit more than 1 billion yuan", which may actually be to the tune of 10 billion yuan ($1.44 billion).