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The story
Founded by Lei Jun and Lin Bin on Apr 6, 2010, in Beijing.1
2010–2013
On 6 April 2010, Xiaomi was co-founded by Lei Jun and six others:
Lin Bin (林斌), vice president of the Google China Institute of Engineering
Zhou Guangping (周光平), senior director of the Motorola Beijing R&D center
Liu De (刘德), department chair of the Department of Industrial Design at the University of Science and Technology Beijing
Li Wanqiang (黎万强), general manager of Kingsoft Dictionary
Huang Jiangji (黄江吉), principal development manager
Hong Feng (洪峰), senior product manager for Google China
Lei had worked at Kingsoft as an executive and been involved in the founding and management of Joyo.com, the latter of which was sold to Amazon for $75 million in 2004. At the time of the founding of the company, Lei was dissatisfied with the products of other mobile phone manufacturers and thought he could make a better product.
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On 16 August 2010, Xiaomi launched its first Android-based firmware MIUI (Now Xiaomi HyperOS).
In 2010, the company raised $41 million in a Series A round.
In August 2011, the company launched its first phone, the Xiaomi Mi 1. The device had Xiaomi's MIUI firmware along with Android installation.
In December 2011, the company raised $90 million in a Series B round.
In June 2012, the company raised $216 million of funding in a Series C round at a $4 billion valuation. Institutional investors participating in the first round of funding included Temasek Holdings, IDG Capital, Qiming Venture Partners and Qualcomm.
In August 2013, the company hired Hugo Barra from Google, where he served as vice president of product management for the Android platform. He was employed as vice president of Xiaomi to expand the company outside of mainland China, making Xiaomi the first company selling smartphones to poach a senior staffer from Google's Android team. He left the company in February 2017.
In September 2013, Xiaomi announced its Xiaomi Mi 3 smartphone and an Android-based 47-inch 3D-capable Smart TV assembled by Sony TV manufacturer Wistron of Taiwan.
In October 2013, it became the fifth most used smartphone brand in China.
In 2013, Xiaomi sold 18.7 million smartphones.
2014–2020
In February 2014, Xiaomi announced its expansion outside China, with an international headquarters in Singapore.
In April 2014, Xiaomi purchased the domain name mi.com for a record US$3.6 million, the most expensive domain name ever bought in China, replacing xiaomi.com as the company's main domain name.
In September 2014, Xiaomi acquired a 24.7% stake in Roborock.
In December 2014, Xiaomi raised US$1.1 billion at a valuation of over US$45 billion, making it one of the most valuable private technology companies in the world. The financing round was led by Hong Kong-based technology fund All-Stars Investment Limited, a fund run by former Morgan Stanley analyst Richard Ji.
In 2014, the company sold over 60 million smartphones. In 2014, 94% of the company's revenue came from mobile phone sales.
In April 2015, Ratan Tata acquired a stake in Xiaomi.
On 30 June 2015, Xiaomi announced its expansion into Brazil with the launch of locally manufactured Redmi 2; it was the first time the company assembled a smartphone outside of China. However, the company left Brazil in the second half of 2016.
On 26 February 2016, Xiaomi launched the Mi5, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor.
On 3 March 2016, Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 3 Pro in India, the first smartphone to be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 processor.
On 10 May 2016, Xiaomi launched the Mi Max, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 650/652 processor.
In June 2016, the company acquired patents from Microsoft.
In September 2016, Xiaomi launched sales in the European Union (EU) through a partnership with ABC Data.
Also in September 2016, the Xiaomi Mi Robot vacuum was released by Roborock.
On 26 October 2016, Xiaomi launched the Mi Mix, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor.
On 22 March 2017, Xiaomi announced that it planned to set up a second manufacturing unit in India in partnership with contract manufacturer Foxconn.
On 19 April 2017, Xiaomi launched the Mi6, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor.
In July 2017, the company entered into a patent licensing agreement with Nokia.
On 5 September 2017, Xiaomi released Xiaomi Mi A1, the first Android One smartphone under the slogan: Created by Xiaomi, Powered by Google. Xiaomi stated started working with Google for the Mi A1 Android One smartphone earlier in 2017. An alternate version of the phone was also available with MIUI, the MI 5X.
In 2017, Xiaomi opened Mi Stores in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The EU's first Mi Store was opened in Athens, Greece in October 2017. In Q3 2017, Xiaomi overtook Samsung to become the largest smartphone brand in India. Xiaomi sold 9.2 million units during the quarter. On 7 November 2017, Xiaomi commenced sales in Spain and western Europe.
In April 2018, Xiaomi announced a smartphone gaming brand called Black Shark. It had 6GB of RAM coupled with Snapdragon 845 SoC, and was priced at $508, which cost less than its competitors.
On 2 May 2018, Xiaomi announced the launch of Mi Music and Mi Video to offer "value-added internet services" in India. On 3 May 2018, Xiaomi announced a partnership with 3 to sell smartphones in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Austria, Denmark, and Sweden.
In May 2018, Xiaomi began selling smart home products in the United States through Amazon.
In June 2018, Xiaomi became a public company via an initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, raising $4.72 billion.
On 7 August 2018, Xiaomi announced that Holitech Technology Co. Ltd., Xiaomi's top supplier, would invest up to $200 million over the next three years to set up a major new plant in India.
In August 2018, the company announced POCO as a mid-range smartphone line, first launching in India.
In Q4 of 2018, the Xiaomi Pocophone F1 became the best-selling smartphone sold online in India. The Pocophone was sometimes referred to as the "flagship killer" for offering high-end specifications at an affordable price. The K in K series stands for killer, as in flagship killer.
The company opened new headquarters in Beijing in July 2019 after almost four years of construction.
In October 2019, the company announced that it would launch more than 10 5G phones in 2020, including the Mi 10/10 Pro with 5G functionality.
On 5 November 2019, Xiaomi announced that it would enter the Japanese market. It established a subsidiary, Xiaomi Japan, as parts of its effort to enter the Japanese smartphone market.
On 17 January 2020, POCO India became a separate sub-brand of Xiaomi with entry-level and mid-range devices, followed by its global counterpart on 24 November 2020.
In March 2020, Xiaomi launched their first foldable phone, the Mi Mix Fold. Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 with an 8.01-inch foldable AMOLED display when open and a 6.5-inch external display when folded. In March 2020, Xiaomi showcased its new 40W wireless charging solution, which was able to fully charge a smartphone with a 4,000mAh battery from flat in 40 minutes.
In October 2020, Xiaomi became the third-largest smartphone maker in the world by shipment volume, shipping 46.2 million handsets in Q3 2020.
Since 2021
On 30 March 2021, Xiaomi announced its intention to invest US$10 billion in electric vehicles over the following ten years. On 31 March 2021, Xiaomi announced a new logo for the company, designed by Kenya Hara.
In July 2021, Xiaomi became the second largest smartphone maker in the world, according to Canalys. It also surpassed Apple for the first time in Europe, making it the second-largest in Europe according to Counterpoint.
In August 2021, the company acquired autonomous driving company Deepmotion for $77 million.
In December 2021, Xiaomi announced the Xiaomi 12 and Xiaomi 12 Pro. The phones are powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset.
In April 2022, Xiaomi officially joined the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) board.
In June 2022, Xiaomi established Zhuhai Xinshi Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd., with a registered capital of 200 million RMB. The business scope includes: integrated circuit manufacturing, integrated circuit chip design and services, integrated circuit chip and product manufacturing, integrated circuit design, manufacturing of specialized equipment for semiconductor devices, manufacturing of semiconductor discrete devices, manufacturing of semiconductor lighting devices etc. The company is jointly held by Xiaomi's affiliated company Hubei Xiaomi Changjiang Industrial Fund Management and others.
In July 2022, Xiaomi and its sub-brand POCO combined held a 42% market share in the Russian smartphone market, ranking first.
On 1 August 2022, Xiaomi India elevated COO Murali Krishnan B as president, responsible for the company's daily operations, services, public affairs, and strategic projects, stating that he would continue to work towards strengthening the company's commitment to the Made in India and Digital India initiatives.
On 3 August 2022, the 2022 Fortune Global 500 list was released, with Xiaomi Group ranking 266th, a rise of 72 positions compared to the previous year.
In December 2022, Xiaomi announced that the global cumulative sales of the Redmi Note series had exceeded 300 million units.
On 28 February 2023, Redmi released a 300W fast charging technology, claiming that it can charge a 4100mAh battery by 10% in just 3 seconds, 50% in 2 minutes and 13 seconds, and fully charge it within 5 minutes.
In September 2023, Huawei and Xiaomi announced they reached a global patent cross-licensing agreement that covers multiple communications technologies including 5G.
In April 2025, Xiaomi announced its venture into large-scale AI models with the introduction of MiMo, marking a shift toward deep AI integration in its product lineup.
In May 2025, Lei Jun announced that the 3nm process mobile phone processor chip XRING O1 independently developed and designed by Xiaomi will be released soon. On 22 May, XRING O1 was officially released and installed on Xiaomi 15S Pro and Xiaomi Pad 7 Ultra.
On 26 June 2025, Xiaomi Auto's first SUV model Xiaomi YU7 was officially launched.
In October 2025, Xiaomi quietly launched a short-drama app in China called Watch Short Dramas (Weiguan Duanju), distributed via Xiaomi’s own app store and promoted as an ad-free, free-to-watch catalogue; reports said it had reached about 20,000 downloads shortly after release.
In 2025, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)'s Annual PCT Review ranked Xiaomi's number of patent applications published under the PCT System as 8th in the world, with 1,889 patent applications being published during 2024.
On 18 April 2026, Xiaomi released a trillion-parameters Large Language Model, MiMo-V2-Pro and Lei Jun announced that the company planned to invest at least US$8.7 billion in artificial intelligence over the following three years.
From Wikipedia’s article on Xiaomi, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5