India is becoming our largest overseas market, says Xiaomi CEO Jun Lei

Jun Lei, co-founder and CEO China's smartphone maker Xiaomi, has said that India is becoming its largest overseas market and the firm has the opportunity to become the number one brand in the world, Bloomberg reported. He made the remark at World Internet Conference in China.

Xiaomi is one of the hottest startups among a bunch of new generation smartphone makers across the globe and has got a large chunk of its fast growing home market. Its been following a online only sales model.

As per a recent report, Xiaomi has jumped to the number three spot in the worldwide smartphone market, behind Samsung and Apple. According to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report, the company shipped 17.3 million handsets in the third quarter of 2014, and enjoyed a market share of 5.3 per cent.

Already one of the leading smartphone manufacturer's in China, Xiaomi had made a successful debut in the Indian smartphone market in July this year with the launch of its flagship device Mi3 in the country. Following an online only flash sales model for selling its devices in the country, the company saw its product being sold out within seconds not once or twice but many times before the product ran out of its lifetime. It is now set to launch Mi4.

In India, the company has had an exclusive partnership with Indian e-commerce major Flipkart.com to offer its devices. According to the company, it has already sold over 500,000 smartphones in the country in less than four months of operations. It is now also considering setting up a manufacturing base in the country.

In India, Samsung is still the top selling brand with 38 per cent marketshare, followed by home-grown brand Micromax (16 per cent), Karbonn (10 per cent). However, reports indicate that Samsung is gradually losing its foothold, with Micromax seeing huge growth.

Xiaomi recently appointed ex-Googler Jai Mani as lead product manager in India.