Xiaomi sells 2 million phones in 12 hours

Disruptive Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has announced its best ever single-day sales performance by shifting 2.12 million phones over a 12 hour period via its Mi Fan Festival 2015 online customer event.

Xiaomi focuses on a direct sales model, primarily through the online channel. It has cleverly used social media to build up a large and apparently loyal fan base, prompting comparisons with the cultish devotion of some Apple fans.

The Mi Fan Festival 2015 was positioned as a “huge online party held to celebrate Xiaomi’s 5th birthday,” but was essentially its latest annual sales promotion event. The event was hosted concurrently in six other countries on top of China, with Malaysia, India and Indonesia being included for the first time.

Xiaomi says it sold 61.2 million smartphones in 2014, making it the fifth largest global smartphone vendor by volume. The fact that it has achieved this via the direct model, which itself seems to be growing, is a major concern to other smartphones vendors. The inclusion of other major Asian markets in its latest Fan Festival will be further cause for concern.