Xiaomi has revealed that the company has sold more smartphones in the first half of this year than in did for the whole of 2013, and posting revenues in excess of $5.3 billion. Again, as a comparison, this number is more than double what the company posted for FY2013.
The company’s financial report for the first half of the year shows that the company sold an incredible 26 million phones. For comparison, Xiaomi sold “only” 7.19 million phones in 2012, and a further 18.7 million last year. It is well on course to sell more phones than the last two years combined; CEO Lei Jun states that it now expects to hit the 60 million mark by the end of this year – up from his earlier expectation of 40 million.
The US$5.3 billion the company made in revenue is certainly impressive, and represents a 149% increase from the same period last year. These very impressive figures is largely due to Xiaomi’s recent foray into the international market, starting with Singapore this year, and later in Malaysia. It’s also just announced its arrival in two more Asian countries, India and the Philippines. In both Singapore and Malaysia, Xiaomi has received a spectacular reception, with its products selling out so quickly it has managed to anger a minority of consumers into labelling its flash sales an elaborate marketing stunt (not to mention spur an unhealthy secondary economy).
Regardless, this business model is clearly working well for the Chinese company with a startup heart. Even though the company did not reveal its profits for the two financial quarters, these numbers revealed today indicate some seriously healthy balance sheets, and will likely only continue getting healthier.
As a result, Lei Jun has now come out and said that Xiaomi expects to sell 100 million devices next year. This is likely not an overly ambitious target, as the company has shown with its international expansion that it is ready to disrupt the markets it has entered, and with the company already laying the groundwork to entering more markets such as Indonesia, 100 million devices in 2015 may not be that unrealistic.
(Source: Bin Lin (Facebook), Hugo Barra (Twitter), The Next Web)
