Xiaomi's international business may account for over half of its revenue, and it's all thanks to MIUI

Xiaomi's Lei Jun spoke about MIUI and its role in the company's meteoric rise as a smartphone OEM at the Zhongguancun forum for innovation in Bejing (September 17-20, 2020). The executive reportedly reminded the event's audience that this widespread form of Android started out as a custom ROM, quite a while before its makers took the leap into making hardware for it to run on as well.

The early versions of the OS attracted interest and praise from prominent development communities. Buoyed up by this kind of success, Xiaomi started working on language- and region-specific forks of the Android skin, which came in handy as its phones started to leave shelves as well, both in its native China and abroad.

This led to the expansion of Xiaomi (and Redmi) into a number of important markets, including India and Europe, not to mention legions of fans constantly looking for that new MIUI update for their particular devices. The ROM is now into its 12th generation, offering Android 11 features to a growing list of the OEM's newer phones at present.