Apple's main rival in the Chinese market, Xiaomi, is making plans to sell its smartphones in the United States, according to a Xiaomi executive, who made the announcement in a televised interview on Thursday.

Business Insider Australia reported that Hugo Barra, a Xiaomi's international executive, revealed that the company is working to get its patents in order before attempting to sell its smartphones to American consumers.

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It appears China's top smartphone vendor has learned lessons from when its Indian sales operation was temporarily suspended after Ericsson accused Xiaomi of intellectual property rights violations.

Xiaomi only started operations in 2010, but has emerged as one of the Android smartphones of choice among many Chinese consumers. Xiaomi has already started selling their products to the Indian and Brazilian market.

Xiaomi is reportedly worth around $45 billion. It captured a large segment of the market due to its iPhone-looking smartphone designs and cheap price. Despite the China's huge smartphone market, the size of the company's potential customers has been dropping due to the large numbers of brands to choose from. In response, Xiaomi has been aggressively seeking other markets for its products.

Barra said that it will be a year or more before American consumers can buy Xiaomi products from their local store, according to Bloomberg Business. He explained that Xiaomi needs to expand its 2,000 patent portfolio in order to defend itself from possible copyright infringement lawsuits in the United States.

Xiaomi makes smartphones that uses Android operating system, but Apple has charged the Chinese company imitating its iPhone designs, according to Business Insider.

Barra has described the accusation as unfair. He said that most if not all smartphones do share basic similarities because they are designed to work in a particular fashion. He thinks that in the near future, Xiaomi's smartphone design will be the one imitated by other smartphone makers.

Pundits are currently referring to Xiaomi as the "Apple of China" probably because the companies smartphones share a similar appearance with iPhones. Critics have also acknowledged that Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun has the same charisma as Apple's former CEO Steve Jobs.

Tagsapple of china, Hugo Barra, Xiaomi Phones, Xiaomi Phones America, Xiaomi American Market, Apple Xiaomi Lawsuit, Apple Xiaomi China