China’s hottest tech startup Xiaomi just sold 2.12 million phones in 12 hours
Still relatively unknown in the West, Xiaomi Inc. is China’s hottest tech startup, and not just due to it also being the world’s most highly valued tech startup (the only one worth more than Uber Inc.,) but also because it really, really knows how to sell phones.
To celebrate its fifth anniversary the company on Wednesday held a 12 hour sale dubbed the “Mi Fan Festival.” The result: 2.12 million phones, and $335 million in revenue.
Along with the phones sold, Xiaomi also sold 38,000 televisions, 200,000 fitness bands and 247,000 power strips, with income of around $31 million in these areas; the company is still fairly new to the television and accessories space, but the figures would indicate that there is a growing demand for products outside their core mobile phones.
The 2.12 million phones sold was a new record sales day for the upstart manufacturer, with the same festival in 2014 selling 1.3 million, although of note Xiaomi has expanded its presence in the new territories in the preceding 12 months, including Malaysia and Indonesia.
Founded in 2010, Xiaomi become the world’s third largest mobile device manufacturer in October 2014 and had a valuation of $46 billion as of its last round, in December 2014. For the full year of 2014 Xiaomi shipments were up 227 percent year-on-year with pre-tax revenue of 74.3 billion yuan ($11.97 billion.)
The company said previously that it intended to expand the countries it sells its phones in to Brazil, Turkey, Mexico, Thailand, and Russia during 2015, and unexpectedly started selling its accessories (but not its phones) in the United States back in February.
Since you’re here …
… We’d like to tell you about our mission and how you can help us fulfill it. SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content.
If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.