Xiaomi celebrated its fifth birthday with a 12 hour fan festival across seven countries in Asia, with flash sales leading to more than 2m smartphones being sold during the event, held yesterday.

The event saw the firm bring in revenue of ¥2.08bn (£226m) from 2.9m orders, including 2.04m smartphones, 39,000 smart televisions and over 770,000 smart appliances, breaking previous records for its flash sale events.

The company has recently expanded its presence in India with new online retail channels and its first physical store presence there, following a deal with operator Airtel. This event marked the first time customers in India, Indonesia and Malaysia have been able to access the flash sales, and shows the growing international reach of the brand.

Xiaomi benefits from a unique relationship with its fans, regularly hosting parties and maintaining an active forum where it solicits feedback and updates software based on user suggestions, with especially dedicated fans rewarded with products.

The firm also invites hundreds of fans to launch events and has relied heavily in non-traditional social marketing to spread its products, rather than purchasing ads, either in the real world or online.