Smartphone producer Xiaomi makes recovery with increased sales

Tech ‘unicorn’ Xiaomi has made a recent recovery after its 2015 decline, reporting a soar in sales for the second quarter this year.

Xiaomi is based in Beijing and produces, among other items, smartphones, rice cookers and drones.

The company, a rare ‘$1bn start-up’ was the top-valued start-up in the world in 2014, but then missed its 2015 handset shipment targets and gave smaller suppliers an opportunity to compete.

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However, Xiaomi is now back on the list as fifth largest supplier of smartphones worldwide, after market leaders Samsung, Apple, Huawei and Oppo. This comes after a surge in shipments of 59% year on year, to a current total of 21m.

For the most recent quarter, a mammoth 23.3% of market share belongs to Samsung while Xiaomi takes 6.2%, closely following rival Oppo at 8.1%.

Chief Financial Offcer Shou Zi Chew has attributed the company’s 2015 failure to moving too fast – a reasonable claim since the company rose from a start-up to $10bn in revenue in just four years.

In the past year, the company has seen promising growth, going from 10,000 to 14,000 employees. The producer currently has 137m stores across China, and according to the Financial Times ‘claims to be the third biggest handset seller in Indonesia and fourth in Russia.’