Xiaomi's only been a carmaker for a year—and it's already selling more cars than EV startups that have been in the business for years. The company's 2024 earnings, its first set of annual results as a bona fide carmaker, show that founder Lei Jun’s big EV bet is paying off. The company report ed 365.9 billion Chinese yuan ($50.6 billion) in 2024 revenue, a 35% jump. Xiaomi reported strong growth on the top line, too, with 27.2 billion Chinese yuan ($3.8 billion) in adjusted net profit, a 41% increase. The vast majority of Xiaomi’s revenue was generated from its traditional business of selling smartphones and home appliances. The remainder—about 10% or 32.7 billion yuan ($4.5 billion)—came from Xiaomi’s new EV division.  Xiaomi reported 136,000 EV deliveries for 2024, and lifted its 2025 delivery target for EVs to 350,000, up from an earlier figure of 300,000.  Xiaomi's big EV bet Xiaomi has been on a roll, even compared to a broader rally in China’s tech sector. Shares in the company are up by more than 280% over the past 12 months, ahead of just about every other stock in Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index. The company released its first EV, the SU7, in March 2024, and high demand led to a months-long waitlist. Xiaomi has kept up a steady pace of sales since the SU7’s release. The model even won over Ford CEO Jim Farley, who praised Xiaomi’s car on a podcast last October.  On Tuesday, hours before releasing its earnings, Xiaomi revealed it had delivered 200,000 cars since it entered the market. Xiaomi plans to release the YU7, an electric SUV, in the summer. The model will compete against Tesla’s recently-refreshed Model Y. EVs are an expensive venture for Xiaomi and its founder Lei Jun, who previously noted that he spent 10 times the industry average to build his first EV prototype. Jun stuck with his attempt to build EVs after Apple—an inspiration for Jun and the company he founded—abandoned its ambitions to make an “Apple Car” in early 2024. On Tuesday, Xiaomi revealed it spent 24.1 billion yuan ($3.3 billion) on research and development in 2024, primarily towards EVs. It plans to spend even more—around 30 billion yuan ($4.2 billion)—in the coming year.  Xiaomi’s successful expansion to EVs may be helping its other businesses, particularly the smartphone business. By proving it can make and sell an EV, Xiaomi has “further enhanced its brand image,” which in turn has helped to lift its phone sales, research firm Counterpoint wrote this year. With 17.2% of the market, Xiaomi was China’s second-largest phonemaker in the final quarter of last year, according to Counterpoint, just ahead of Apple and behind Huawei. Xiaomi’s phones are performing well on the global scale, too. Xiaomi, citing data from Canalys, claimed it was the world’s third-largest phonemaker in 2024, behind Apple and Samsung. It’s also the highest-ranked manufacturer from China. Chinese phonemakers are making a push to expand to new overseas markets, particularly Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Analysts suggest some of these regions are a good launching point for Chinese companies—which cut their teeth making more affordable models—to start moving into the premium sector.  China's tech sector continues to rally China tech stocks have rallied this year after investors have spent time reassessing the country’s prospects for innovation in the wake of DeepSeek’s AI release. The Hang Seng Tech Index, which tracks technology companies listed in Hong Kong, is up 40% for the year so far. BYD shares hit a record high on Tuesday after the EV giant claimed its new charging system could give a full charge in as little as five minutes. Investors are also hopeful of more government support for the economy, as Beijing tries to jumpstart domestic consumption amid new tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump.  Earlier this year, Xi Jinping met several luminaries from China’s tech sector, including Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei , DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng, and Xiaomi's Lei Jun, in what observers read as a signal that Beijing’s earlier crackdown against Big Tech was at an end.  This story was originally featured on Fortune.com ...read more read less