When the charismatic founder of upstart Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi took the stage at an Internet conference, he was open about his ambition: world domination.
"In the next five to 10 years, Xiaomi has the opportunity to become the world's number one smartphone company," lei Jun told the Chinese-organised World Internet Conference. Xiaomi, which takes its name from the Chinese word for millet, has excelled in China's cut-throat smartphone market by delivering high-performance products at cheap prices.
In less than five years, the Chinese company has become the world's number three smartphone vendor, behind only Apple and South Korea's Samsung, shipping 17.3 million phones in the third quarter of 2014, according to International Data Corp (IDC). Xiaomi claims sales of more than 61 million smartphones last year, up 227 per cent from 2013, with turnover more than doubling to $12 billion. But critics say the firm has simply copied the look of Apple's iPhones, thriving because of weak intellectual property protection in China.