BEIJING, Jan. 4 -- Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp said it sold 18.7 millionsmartphones in 2013, up 160 percent year-on-year, and that it officially expanded toSingapore on Jan 1, in a bid to enter the global market.
Lei Jun, founder and chief executive officer of Xiaomi, said in an internal e-mail that thecompany had sales of 31.6 billion yuan ($5.18 billion) last year, an increase of 150 percentover the previous year. Lei said previously that he expects the company's revenue to hit100 billion yuan by 2015.
"Xiaomi will see shipments of more than 40 million handsets in 2014," Lei wrote in the e-mail.
The Beijing-based company, which started as a smartphone manufacturer, now also makestelevisions, set-top boxes and mobile phone peripherals.
Last year, Xiaomi, which has more than 4,000 employees, hired Google Inc's former vice-president Hugo Barra.
Lei also said in the e-mail that the company set up an office in Singapore on Jan 1, in anattempt to sell smartphones outside mainland China.
Liu Wei, Xiaomi's spokesman, told China Daily that Xiaomi selected Singapore as a regionalhub to expand to Southeast Asian markets.
"We don't have any specific targets for those markets yet," Liu added.
The rapid rise of Chinese smartphone vendors such as Xiaomi and Huawei Technologies CoLtd has hampered Apple Inc's progress in China, though the US company signed a dealwith China Mobile Ltd last month and is preparing to offer iPhone devices running on ChinaMobile's network starting on Jan 17.
