Xiaomi is the most important phone manufacturer you've never heard of.In the rich world, dominated by Apple and Samsung and where even fading brands such as Nokia and Blackberry remain familiar, Xiaomi (pronounced like the "show-" in shower, plus "me") is still largely unknown.

小米是你从没听说过的最重要的手机生产商。在这个纷繁的手机世界，苹果和三星处于主导地位，一些已经淡出市场的品牌例如诺基亚和黑莓还依旧为大家熟知。而小米（发音听起来像“shower”一次中的“show-”再加上一个“me”）仍然没有什么知名度。
Yet this firm, only 5 years old, has already become a formidable supplier of smartphones in its home market of China (the world's largest), and has begun a remarkably successful campaign of international expansion.
这个公司建立至今只有短短五年，却已经在中国的国内市场（世界最大的市场）上成为了实力最轻的智能手机供应商，并且开始引领一场非常成功的国际扩张运动。
As the firm gets ready to announce its newest model, the Mi5, next week, it is worth tuning in, because more than any company other than Apple, Xiaomi will show us where smartphones -- which is to say the mobile, networked computers we all have in our pockets -- are going worldwide.
小米公司已经准备好下周要公开他最新的设计模型Mi5，这款手机非常值得入手，因为小米已经超越了除苹果以外的任何公司，将要向我们展示智能手机的国际化，而智能手机如今已经可以说是人们都有的放在衣服口袋里的移动联网电脑。

China and the United States are the two most important economic powers in the world, and that goes double for technology.

中国和美国是世界上最重要的两个经济体，而两国在科技上的重要性则是两倍于经济的。
For three decades, that relationship could be summed up as "invented here, produced there." (The iPhone box may say "Designed in California," but it is made in Shenzhen, China.) Xiaomi is one indicator among many that that relationship is over. Its phones are well-designed and cheap, and, more importantly, the firm has been engineered to rely on the Internet, allowing it to build one of the leanest manufacturing and sales operations the world has ever seen.
三十年来，手机生产中的关系可以被总结为“这儿发明，那儿生产”。（苹果手机可以说是“在加利福尼亚设计的”但是它确实在中国深圳生产的。）小米的发展则是众多信号中的一个，预示着这种关系的结束。小米的手机物美价廉，而且更重要的是，小米公司旨在依靠互联网，这让它可以建立起最可靠的生产和销售体制让世界都看得见。
In a half decade, Xiaomi has gone from a startup focused on making a new mobile phone interface to beating Samsung as the No. 1 phone vendor in the largest market in the world last year.
在五年的时间里，小米从一个最初只专注于设计出一种新的手机界面到去年打败了三星成为全球最大市场的手机供应商。
Xiaomi's products are so popular in China that it has become the third largest ecommerce firm there, just selling its own products. As 2014 closed, the company was valued at $45 billion, an increase in value of something like 18,000% since its first round of fund-raising. It is, by several metrics, the most valuable startup ever.
小米的产品在中国风靡到它在中国已经成为了第三大的电子商务公司，只是通过销售自己生产的商品。2014年尾，小米公司估值已达到450亿美元，这个数字相较于它刚刚开始筹资的时候基本上是增加了18000%。从好几个指标来看，小米已经是目前最有价值的新兴公司。。
Xiaomi is widely referred to as the "Chinese Apple," a phrase that carries both a sense of awe at its design prowess and derision at its habits as a design copycat. Both reactions are warranted -- some of their phones look like little else on the market (the Mi3), while others are almost-copies of iPhones (the Mi4).
很多人认为小米就是“中国的苹果”，这个名头既带着对小米高超设计的一丝惊异，也有一种觉得小米习惯性山寨别人设计的嘲弄。这两种反应都是有依可循的——小米有的手机确实很少有看起来不一样的（Mi3）,别的都基本是高度模仿苹果手机（Mi4）。
The firm was founded in Beijing in 2010 by Lei Jun, a computer scientist and charismatic serial entrepreneur now in his mid-40s, who is predictably, often compared to Steve Jobs, both for his energy and brilliance, and for his Jobsian taste in clothes and product launches.