Xiaomi says smartphone sales surged almost 90 per cent in the first quarter — bucking the industry trend of lacklustre growth — as the Chinese tech group barrels towards a multibillion-dollar initial public offering.
The latest numbers, released as part of Xiaomi’s filing to list China depositary receipts, also showed that revenues came in at Rmb34.4bn ($5.4bn) in the first quarter, compared with Rmb114.6bn in the whole of 2017. Smartphone sales surged 88 per cent from the same quarter a year ago, to Rmb23.2bn.
The company did not give smartphone unit sales, but Counterpoint consultancy estimates that its shipments doubled in the first quarter, from 13.4m in the first quarter of 2017 to 28.1m in the same period this year. As a result, Xiaomi’s global market share also doubled, to 8 per cent, according to Counterpoint.