As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chinese electronics manufacturer Xiaomi Corporation, Xiaomi Automobile Co Ltd was founded on Sept 1, 2021 in Beijing with a registered capital of 10 billion yuan ($1.57 billion), aiming to offer high-quality smart electric vehicles to its users globally.

Settled in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, the company will set up an automobile manufacturing base as its business, sales and R&D headquarters, according to the agreement signed with the BDA in Nov 27, 2021.

The automobile factory will be constructed in two phases, with each having an annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles. The first car is expected to roll off the production line in 2024.

Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi and CEO of its new smart electric car unit, said earlier that the total investment over the next decade is estimated to be $10 billion. At present, Xiaomi's EV division has about 300 employees.

Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area is home to the facilities of several tech companies, including, e-commerce company JD.com, Baidu, China’s top chip foundry Semiconductor International Manufacturing Corporation. Baidu have been testing its autonomous vehicles in the designated area of the Yizhuang New Town where the development area is located.

As it benefits from rapid growth in overseas markets, Xiaomi Corporation has posted record revenue of 87.8 billion yuan ($13.57 billion) in the second quarter of 2021, up 64 percent year-on-year and beating analyst expectations.

The strong performance came as Xiaomi earned its new tag of the world's No.2 smartphone maker by shipments in the second quarter of 2021. Between April and June, Xiaomi had shipped 52.8 million units of smartphones to the world, marking a year-on-year growth of 83 percent, according to data from market research company Canalys.