Xiaomi made headlines a month ago after its worth reportedly rose from a few billion dollars, to more than $10 billion in just a span of a few months. But it also made the rounds last weekend after it reportedly acquired long time Google Android executive Hugo Barra to become vice president of Xiaomi global. 

While the departure of Barra is still clouded in rather emotional details, it could also be that he just thought Xiaomi would be the next best thing in the Android platform, and the smartphone market as a whole. 

Dubbed as the "Apple of the East", Xiaomi is just over three years old as an established company with only 2,400 employees, yet it was able to sell over 7 million devices in 2012 - and they're still hoping to double that number this year.

You may be thinking that they're just selling cheap feature phones which do not have any value anyway. Wrong. 

Compared to other similar Chinese smartphone manufacturers, Xiaomi sells high-end devices with almost no profit at all. But that does not mean it is unable to deliver the goods. 

In an interview with the New York Times, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said "We're not just some cheap Chinese company making a cheap phone. We're going to be a Fortune 500 company." 

The startup Chinese firm may not be a household name yet for most people in Western countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, but the acquisition of Barra is one step toward that direction. 

Let us wait and see how Xiaomi performs at the end of the year.