The world's largest smartphone market is now led by a comparatively small startup, according to a new report.
Xiaomi, a Chinese gadget maker that launched recently enough for some to still call it a startup, passed giants like Samsung and Lenovo to become the top smartphone seller in China, based on data released Tuesday from IDC.
The young company accounted for 12.5% of smartphone shipments in the country in 2014, more than doubling its market share from a year earlier and narrowly beating out Samsung, which had a market share of 12.1% for the year.
"Xiaomi's focus on selling low-cost phones with decent specifications, as well as the hype that it created through its flash sales, helped it to obtain the top position in both 2014Q4 and 2014," the researcher stated in its report.
A separate report from Canalys released last month put Apple in the top spot for fourth quarter smartphone shipments in China, followed by Xiaomi and then Samsung.
Xiaomi was founded in 2010 and launched a series of products that invited comparisons to Apple. The company recently raised $1.1 billion in funding, giving it a pre-money valuation of $45 billion -- incredibly large by startup standards, though still quite small compared to Apple and Samsung.
Last week, execs from Xiaomi announced that the company planned to launch an e-commerce site in the U.S., though the site will only sell accessories, at least for now.