Liu De, co-founder of Xiaomi, shares a photo of the company's ecosystem tean at at a media conference held in Beijing on March 29, 2016.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

He said Xiaomi has invested in 55 companies, at a speed of one company each every 15 days. The experienced venture capital investor added that 29 companies were set up by Xiaomi from the scratch, including naming, organizing management teams and choosing products to manufacture.

Among the 55 ecosystem companies, 20 already have their own products, five have gained an annual revenue of more than 100 million yuan and two have raked in one billion yuan yearly.

Liu De, co-founder of Xiaomi, said the company has a team of 170 employees in charge of its ecosystem business. These employees, who joined Xiaomi at a rather early stage, are responsible for communication between Xiaomi and its ecosystem companies and making sure products from these partners are in line with Xiaomi's culture and design standards. They would also help them with branding, supply chain, sales channels and financing.