Chinese tech firm Xiaomi's revenue doubles in 2014

Xiaomi says its revenue jumped 135% last year

Chinese handset maker Xiaomi said it more than doubled its revenue in 2014, just a week after it was named the world's most valuable tech start-up.

The firm said it made 74.3bn yuan (£7.8bn; $11.97bn) in pre-tax sales last year, up 135% from 2013.

Now the world's third largest smartphone maker behind Samsung and Apple, it sold over 61 million phones last year, up 227% from a year earlier.

Last week, Xiaomi received $1.1bn in funding that valued the firm at $45bn.

That figure surpasses the $40bn value of taxi booking app Uber, which previously held the title of the most valuable private technology company.

The firm also surpassed its target of selling 60 million phones in 2014, up from less than 20 million a year earlier.

Looking forward, the company said it planned to unveil a new flagship device in January.

'Starting from scratch'

In a translation of a post on chief executive Lei Jun's Sina Weibo microblog on Sunday, the co-founder said the company had come a long way since starting "from scratch" in April 2010.

"2014 is a year of important milestones for Xiaomi. We came from behind and became market leader in China," he said.

With its business model of producing cheap smartphones, the fast-growing firm overtook global market leader Samsung in sales last year in the world's largest smartphone market, China.

Mr Lei, however, does expect growth in the Chinese market to ease this year and plans to enter more overseas markets.

"We have successfully entered seven markets outside mainland China.

"In India, we sold over 1 million smartphones in less than five months," he said, despite the intellectual property challenges it faced in the country last month.

Xiaomi sales were temporarily halted in India after Swedish firm Ericsson filed a patent complaint against it.