One of our trends to watch in 2015 is the continued growth of Chinese smartphone makers like Xiaomi and Huawei, which are huge in their home market but which also have strong global ambitions. Here are some Xiaomi numbers to fuel that: the company sold 61.1m smartphones in 2014 according to its chief executive Lei Jun, which is more than triple the 18.7m that it sold in 2013. The company is now the third largest smartphone maker in the world by shipments, behind only Samsung and Apple. TechCrunch’s writeup of the Xiaomi figures is worth a read too: it includes the company’s predictions that it’ll ship 100m smartphones in 2015, including its strong start in India, where it has sold 1m devices in five months despite a patent-related sales ban. Xiaomi is also investing in other hardware companies, including wearable fitness firm Misfit, as it tries to build an ecosystem around its devices to take on Samsung and Apple.
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In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…