Xiaomi’s net profit nearly doubled last year according to a confidential document viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The document viewed by WSJ includes a table showing that Xiaomi’s net profit rose 84% to RMB 3.46 billion ($566 million) last year from RMB 1.88 billion in 2012. And, its revenue more than doubled to RMB 27 billion. It also includes a forecast of Xiaomi’s net profit increase this year to be 75%.
WSJ also revealed that Xiaomi spent only 876 million yuan, or 3.2% of its revenue, on sales and marketing expenses last year, a decreased percentage of its revenue or 416 million yuan (3.9%) in 2012.
Xiaomi, claiming as Apple of China, has been extremely successful after three years of set up. Xiaomi sold out 18.7 million smartphones in 2013, an increase of 160%; and, it achieved the same results in the 3rd quarter of 2014. The total sales in the first half 2014 reached 26.11 million units generating a total revenue of RMB 33 billion.
Xiaomi is active on Weibo, Wechat, Baidu Tieba, QQ, and other online forums. When it was just founded, their staff spent a lot of time on forums, making comments, and posting. It is recently ranked the most innovative Chinese company (35th globally) in 2014 according to BCG’s 2014 global innovation survey.
Here is a video of Xiaomi’s Hugo Barra at WSJD Live:
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