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Xiaomi, the smartphone maker whose co-founder Lei Jun has been compared to Steve Jobs, expects to sell many more smartphones in 2014.
In a post on China’s Twitter-like service Sina Weibo, Lei wrote that his company will “supply 40 million phones in 2014.” According to The Guardian, which earlier reported on the assertion, Xiaomi sold about 19 million smartphones in 2013, which more than doubled the number of handsets the company sold in 2012.
High on the list of Xiaomi’s targets for expansion is Southeast Asia, according to Hugo Barra, the former Android honcho at Google who’s now heading up Xiaomi’s expansion efforts. “I’m trying to find markets and get to them as quickly as possible,” Barra said at the LeWeb conference in Paris in December.
Xiaomi has found a sweet spot in its home market of China by offering sleek devices at a low price. Perhaps more importantly, Lei has been able to build hype about the Android-based handsets and offers a relatively small supply of products at launch. That builds up demand and allows the company to sell out of its products in seconds.
Xiaomi has yet to officially announce its plans for 2014.
