Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun aims to ship 100 million smartphones in 2018

In a letter to all Xiaomi employees, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun announced that the company shipped 23.16 million smartphones in Q2 2017, an increase of 70% from the previous quarter.

This record high for Xiaomi’s quarterly smartphone shipments signifies a major inflection point in its growth.

According to Jun, after two years of internal recalibration, Xiaomi is once again embarking on a rapid growth trajectory and he asserts that to date, no other smartphone company globally had been able to resume growth after a decline in sales. In his letter, he acknowledges two instances of supply issues that hampered the company’s supply chain for several months and softened the smartphone sales.

One of the highlights of Xiaomi’s success in the period is its new retail model that integrates online and offline retail channels. While Xiaomi was ranked number one in terms of smartphone sales on popular Chinese ecommerce stores like JD.com, Tmall, and Suning during this year’s 618 online shopping festival, the company also opened 123 Mi Home stores across China with another 14 coming up tomorrow on July 8.

Jun also credits the company’s relentless pursuit of technological innovation and investments in R&D for its success. Last year, Xiaomi applied for 7,071 patents globally and it was granted 2,895, of which half are international patents.

Of course, Xiaomi also made great strides in India – the company’s biggest market outside of China. Xiaomi is the number 2 brand in the overall Indian smartphone market, and the revenue in the first half of the year is up 328% year-on-year. Other countries where Xiaomi is seeing great results in are Indonesia, Russia, and Ukraine.

But Lei Jun is not ready to settle just yet. He has set a ‘humble’ revenue goal of RMB 100 billion for the year, and kicking off a new chapter for the company, he aims for Xiaomi to ship 100 million smartphones in 2018.