Xiaomi is interested in another investment round for 2014 and has reportedly valued itself at $40 billion, reports Bloomberg News. This would make the Chinese phone maker more valuable than rivals Sony ($21 billion) and Lenovo's ($16 billion) combined.

Last year, Xiaomi raised a ton of investment with a valuation of $10 billion, but in the past twelve months, the phone maker has made a 221 percent increase in global sales, leading to 18 million sales and a 6 percent share in the mobile phone industry.

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This impressive boost in sales, followed by Xiaomi's quick push into India and other South-East Asian markets, could give it a $40 billion value. However, a true test its valuation will be seen depending on how many investors buy into the valuation.

Currently, Xiaomi is a private company, so they do not have to publish their earnings each quarter or participate in the usual earnings call for investors. Xiaomi has a small line of investment groups that have kept the phone maker afloat, while it continues to dominate the Chinese phone market.

Xiaomi has also shown no interest in becoming a public entity either - the CEO and executives clearly confident that further investment and privatization of their earnings will do more good than a large pool of investor cash.

However, with the recent success of Alibaba on the New York stock exchange, it might be enough to interest Xiaomi. Alibaba's valuation has increased dramatically since the IPO launch, going up from $64 to $90 in just one day, and is currently trading at more than $103 a share.

The one issue Xiaomi (and Alibaba to a degree) have is the lack of global presence. China is a huge market, but Xiaomi has not proved it can break the U.S. or European markets.

This will be a more tough time for Xiaomi, who have already come under the radar as a copycat of Apple's business practices. Put Xiaomi on the home turf of Apple and it might be a different story.

TagsXiaomi investors