Judging by its sales ouput, Xiaomi is getting bigger by the minute. Now, it seems the world's third largest smartphone manufacturer - bagging 2014 sales of over 60 million smartphones under its belt - is poised to hog the limelight once again with its upcoming Mi5 flagship product rumored to be launched before the year ends.

Already, CEO and founder Lei Jun is ecstatic divulging the Xiaomi's meticulous process towards launching a new smartphone - which accordingly usually takes five or six prototypes to arrive at perfection -  and duly posting such prototypes in his Weibo social network site.

However, the Chinese company dubbed as the "Apple" of China could be just biding its time in launching Mi5 in light of the just-launched Mi Note phablet.

The Magic of Xiaomi

Unlike most of its biggest competitors - Apple and Samsung including - Xiaomi's marketing plan follows a largely untraditional path.

Where the biggest smartphone manufacturer from Korea would load up profits on its devices from the onset, Xiaomi would sell phones almost at bill-of-material prices - opting for a more long-term showing.

But untraditional as it is, Xiaomi is increasing by leaps and bounds outselling even Samsung in the 2^nd Quarter of 2014 shipping out 15 million devices trumping the Korean chaebol's 12 million devices in China, as reported by The Motley Fool.

It's not surprising, therefore to find CEO Lei Jun exposing his company's rigorous testing process in launching Xiaomi's 2015 flagship phone Mi5.

Posting via Weibo, the Chinese company's top gun showed an image which features prototypes of highly-successful legacy Mi-series phones. Specifically, he posted photos of Mi2S, Mi3, Mi4, Mi Note including every Redmi Series device in their prototype state as developed by the company's R&D team, according to gizmochina.

Further, he expressed concern about the end-user experience and the over-all quality of each model Xiaomi churns out.

To that end, the company usually ends up making up to 5 or 6 prototype devices to reach product perfection.

Timing is Everything

It was in the Mi4 conference that Lei Jun confirmed that it usually takes R&D 18 months to come up with a particular model and indicated that the Mi5 project has gone through six generations of models.

Already, Xiaomi News reveals that the Mi5 prototype testing is in its final stages but actual launching may be delayed to the later part of the year as affirmed by market analyst Pan Jiutang.

Rumors abound that the upcoming Xiaomi product has an almost-identical specifications with the just-launched Mi Note phablet and would therefore need ample time to launch to avoid unwanted sales cannibalization.