Xiaomi, the fast-rising Chinese electronics company which is frequently accused of copying Apple devices, says it has raised more than $1.1 billion at a $45 billion valuation. At that mile-marker, the company is one of the most valuable startups in the world, and ranks above Uber, which was recently valued at $40 billion.
Although lesser known than other handset makers, this round indicates that investors believe Xiaomi has what it takes to expand beyond its home turf in China, where it has done very well during its first four years in business.
Xiaomi benefits from selling devices at a low cost, which is also why it’s profits remain small. Re/Code reports that in 2013, the company reported $56 million in profits despite selling more than 18 million handsets in China.
In July, the company announced the Mi 4, the Xiaomi’s first LTE smartphone during a presentation that appeared very similar to Apple’s iconic events. The company’s founder, Lei Jun, wore a black shirt and blue jeans, and stood in front of a screen that said “one more thing,” before it announced a new wearable, called the MiBand. But while it looks to intimidate Apple, one of the company’s that could suffer the most from its success is HTC, a Taiwanese handset maker that also wants to sell Android devices globally.
Xiaomi’s products are now being sold in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, India and Indonesia, and the company has plans to expand the number of products it sells to even more markets. In a very short post on Chinese social networking site Weibo announcing the fundraising, the company said: “Xiaomi will assume we are starting from scratch, and continue working towards our dream to let everyone globally enjoy a better life through technology. Our goal is always to pursue high quality, high performance products with good user experience.”
New flagship products will launch in January. The company’s global ambitions are headed up by Hugo Barra, the former Google executive who had led parts of Google’s Android development.
Investors in the round included All Stars, DST, GIC, Hopu and Yunfeng. The All Stars fund is run by a former Morgan Stanley analyst, and a private-equity fund associated with Alibaba chairman Jack Ma, reports The Wall Street Journal.
