Chinese tech giant, Xiaomi, is to begin selling its first electric car, the SU7, at the end of this March.
Xiaomi Founder, Lei Jun, disclosed on Tuesday.
Xiaomi shares rose in Hong Kong in the news that the electronics and software company was to bring the cars to the market on March 28.
Xiaomi announced three years ago that it was developing electric vehicles.
The SU7, a four-door sedan being manufactured in cooperation with China’s state-owned BAIC vehicle manufacturer, was presented in December.
China is the largest global market for electric cars.
China’s BYD and Tesla of the U.S. are battling for dominance.
Other Chinese manufacturers have also entered the market, with many offering large discounts to gain market share.
In contrast, the U.S. tech concern, Apple, canceled its electric car project at the end of February, after years of development.
German carmakers, whose petrol and diesel vehicles have, in the past, been popular in China, found themselves under pressure.
Xiaomi Corporation is commonly known as Xiaomi and registered as Xiaomi Inc. It is a Chinese designer and manufacturer of consumer electronics and related software, home appliances, automobiles, and household hardware.
It is the second-largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world, behind Samsung, most of which run on the MIUI (now HyperOS) operating system, which is based on the Android operating system. The company is ranked 338th and is the youngest company on the Fortune Global 500.
Xiaomi was founded in 2010 in Beijing by Lei Jun along with six associates. Lei had founded Kingsoft as well as Joyo.com, the latter of which he sold to Amazon for $75 million in 2004.
In August 2011, Xiaomi released its first smartphone and, by 2014, it had the largest market share of smartphones sold in China. Initially, the company only sold its products online; however, it later opened brick-and-mortar stores. By 2015, it was developing a wide range of consumer electronics. In 2020, the company sold 149.4 million smartphones and its MIUI (now HyperOS) mobile operating system has over 500 million monthly active users.
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