Xiaomi Corp (小米), whose investors include billionaire Russian investor Yuri Milner, more than doubled its revenue last year, according to a blog posting by chief executive officer Lei Jun (雷軍).
The Beijing-based company’s sales before tax rose to 74.3 billion yuan (US$11.94 billion) last year, Lei said on his microblog yesterday. It sold 61.1 million mobile phones, 227 percent more than in 2013.
Xiaomi plans to release its Redmi (紅米) smartphone and will hold a press conference on Jan. 15 to discuss an “important flagship” product, according to the post.
China’s largest smartphone vendor said on Dec. 29 that its valuation has risen to US$45 billion following a US$1.1 billion funding round that included investors such as Milner’s DST, Singapore’s GIC Pte and All-Stars Investment Ltd. The company is now the highest-valued technology firm yet to go public, Lei said.
Xiaomi, which means “millet” in Chinese, was founded in 2010 to make software for mobile devices running Google Inc’s Android system. The company subsequently released products including a tablet computer, a television set-top box and TVs that connect to the Web.
In the quarter ended Sept. 30 last year, Xiaomi was the world’s third-largest vendor behind Samsung Electronics Corp and Apple Inc. It aims to sell 100 million handsets this year.
Xiaomi has the same potential as Facebook Inc and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd to reach a valuation of US$100 billion, Milner, an early investor in all three, said last month.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six