Smartphone Maker You Never Heard Of Valued At $45 Billion

If you ask anyone about the leading smartphone makers around the world, the obvious answer that we get is Samsung and Apple but what about the third largest smartphone maker? If you thinking about Sony, Nokia, LG, and Lenovo then you are absolutely wrong.

For those who are not aware, the third largest company is the Chinese company known as Xiaomi. If sources have to be believed, then the company has just raised over $1.1 billion through funding from some of most powerful tech industry's players. Currently the company’s value is around $45 billion, which is more than Motorola, LG, and Sony when combined together. The company at present is most valuable startup in the world, and the worth is even more than Pinterest, Uber, and Airbnb.

Xiaomi: 

The company is one of the fastest growing smartphone makers in the world. The company’s sales rose more than 211% to over 17 million smartphones during the third quarter of 2014. This is 50% of the number of iPhones sold by Apple. While the company was having only 2% of the marketshare in 2013, by end of 2014, the company’s share doubles to 5%.

This Chinese smartphone maker rose to such high prominence rather quickly as they focused on the Chinese market and some of the other nearby high-growth countries. The company is known to be the 2nd smartphone brand sought after Samsung in China. Xiaomi has just started selling out their smartphones in Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, and Russia. The company has taken the entire growth markets storm as they are offering super-low price phones through online-only sales.

The gorgeous Mi4 smartphone, which debuted in August, is known as "iPhone killer” in the country. The developers have built the phone exactly like iPhone. With the added knack of excellent marketing, the company has been able to attract a massive number of people in China. According to Bin Lin, co-founder of Xiaomi, their sole aim is to bring innovation into everyone’s life in 2015.

At present, the biggest question that surrounds the company is whether they will be able to cross and grow beyond the countries they are currently operating in for selling phones. A simple example, the company has the potential to shake the entire US market, which is leading and filled with iPhone and Apple dominance?

Looking at the current trend, the company, and the smartphones have not been able to welcome in the United States of America. Some of the other competitors of the company like Huawei, Yulong and Lenovo, have still not headed towards the American soil. In the past decade, Nokia is known to the worldwide leader in cell phone sales and that too without any significant presence in the United States of America. Even though Sony, LG, and other company’s have been able to get success in international market, but still failed to gain footing here.

At present, the company as no plans or in future to sell their smartphones in the United States of America. But, if they plan to do so, they have to be prepared to face one of the biggest challenge ever.