Xiaomi has sold nearly 35 million smartphones so far this year

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi today confirmed that it sold just shy of 35 million phones in the first half of this year. Xiaomi, which is valued at $45 billion and is the world’s third largest exporter of phones, this week expanded into Brazil and is thought to have a slate of other international expansions lined up for this year. That’s important because CEO and co-founder Lei Jun previously estimated that the company would sell 100 million smartphones this year. While 34.7 million in the first half of 2015 is impressive — Xiaomi said it represents a 33 percent increase on the first half of 2014 — the company is going to need to kick up its sales if it is to hit Lei Jun’s lofty target for 2015. The five-year-old Chinese company’s total sales for last year came in at 61 million, which brought in around $12 billion in revenue — Xiaomi did not provide details of its profit or loss for the period. The company has scaled rapidly on account of its international expansion — it sold 18.7 million devices in 2013, and 7.2 million in 2012 prior to venturing outside of China — but its next set of new launches will a sterner test of its business and appeal to consumers.