Call it a ripoff artist that rides on Apple’s coattails if you want, but Xiaomi continues to go from strength to strength in its position as the world’s third-largest phone manufacturer.

Having recently announced a new valuation of $46 billion — making it the most valuable tech startup in existence — China-based smartphone maker Xiaomi Technology recently announced that its sales revenue leaped up by more than 100 percent in 2014, as the company sold a massive 61.1 million smartphones to customers.

Love it or hate it, those are some pretty big numbers!

Revealed by company chairman and CEO Lei Jun, the $12 billion earnings announcement follows shortly after Xiaomi unveiled its Hongmi (Red Rice) 2 smartphone. The Hongmi 2 is an Android 4.4.4 device, boasting a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 1.4GHz quad-core processor, 4.7-inch display 1GB RAM and 8GB ROM, 8-megapixel rear camera, and 2-megapixel front camera.

It’s set to launch in China for a contract-free retail price of around $113 on January 9, before making its way to other overseas markets such as Indonesia.

Other rumors, meanwhile, suggest that Xiaomi is currently trying to beat Apple to market with a smartphone with sapphire display, to be announced at CES.

While all of this is very promising, however, no mention is made of just how much of a profit the company eked out in 2014. Despite its monumental rise in recent years, Xiaomi earned just $51 million in profits in 2013, despite its giant valuation.

Will 2015 be another record twelve months for the company? Or will it be the year in which all its bad karma (mainly patent infringement and design theft accusations) finally start to topple its house of cards?

Source: Digitimes