Xiaomi- Smartphone maker

Xiaomi- the dark horse in smartphone industry

Xiaomi Inc.

It is a privately owned Chinese electronics company headquartered in Beijing, China. It is the world's 4th largest smartphone maker. Xiaomi designs, develops, and sells

smartphones , mobile apps, and related

consumer electronics.

Since the release of its first smartphone in August 2011, Xiaomi has gained market share in mainland China and expanded into developing a wider range of consumer electronics, including a smart home device ecosystem. The company's founder and CEO is Lei Jun , China's 23rd richest person according to Forbes. The company sold over 60 million smartphones in 2014.

The company has over 8,000 employees, mainly in mainland China, Malaysia , and Singapore , and is expanding to other countries such as

India, Indonesia , the Philippines and Brazil .

According to IDC, Xiaomi is now the third largest smartphone maker in the world followed by Lenovo and LG at fourth and fifth place respectively. Samsung remains at the first place despite declining shipment volume, followed by

Apple Inc. at second place. Xiaomi also became the largest smartphone vendor in China in 2014, having overtaken Samsung, according to an IDC report.

At the end of December 2014, Xiaomi became the world’s most valuable technology start-up after it received US$1.1 billion funding from investors, making Xiaomi's valuation more than US$46 billion.

Xiaomi entered the Indian market in July 2014 and since then has expanded rapidly in India. Earlier, Xiaomi used to sell exclusively on Flipkart until announced its partnership with both Amazon.com and

Snapdeal on April 7, 2015. This is seen as a bid by the smartphone manufacturer to expand its retail base in India. It has also teamed up with Airtel Store and The Mobile Store to sell some of its selected devices. Later, in Q1 2015, it started its own store and also stopped selling its accessories to Flipkart and other online stores. On its first anniversary in India , it launched its own Mi Store App. On August 11, 2015, it started its first factory in Sricity , Andhra Pradesh in a partnership with Foxconn .