Xiaomi became the world's 3rd largest smartphone manufacturer last quarter

Not long after becoming the largest smartphone vendor in China, Xiaomi has now claimed the spot as the third larger smartphone manufacturer in the world, according to market researcher IHS iSuppli.

The company sold 19 million smartphones in the third quarter of this year, the vast majority of which were sold in its home nation of China. In the second quarter of the year Xiaomi managed to sell 15.1 million smartphones, 14.6 of which were sold in China, according to Strategy Analytics. This suggests a quarter on quarter sales growth of 26 percent, which is very high indeed. Rival HUAWEI, which was ranked third last year, managed 16.8 million smartphone sales in the third quarter.

Looking at Xiaomi’s longer term sales, you can see just how sudden its rise to the top has been.

That is pretty remarkable growth spurt for a company that was only established four years ago. The company’s growth has mostly been led by the explosion of the Chinese smartphone industry and heavy local demand, but this trend is unlikely to continue forever.

Recently, Xiaomi has been attempting to expand beyond its core Chinese market, selling smartphones in Singapore, Hong Kong, and most recently in India too. Xiaomi’s Hugo Barra recently announced that the company was expanding its data centers around the world to better reach consumers outside of China.

Xiaomi still hasn’t released any sales or profit figures of its own, neither yearly or quarterly, so it’s hard to tell just how much money the company is making from this huge growth in sales. Despite the cutthroat pricing of its handsets, the sheer volume of customers is sure to leave plenty of cash around for future investments and expansion.

We will have to wait and see just how ambitious Xiaomi is and whether the company can become an equally well known brand outside of China over the next few years.