BCG: Xiaomi is one of the world’s most innovative companies, and the top up-and-comer

The Boston Consulting Group has published its annual report (PDF) of the world’s most innovative companies. This year, only three new companies made the top 50 – Salesforce, Hitachi, and Xiaomi.

Xiaomi took the number 35 spot, ahead of its countrymen Huawei (50) and Tencent (47), but behind Lenovo. Compared to other phone manufacturers, it’s also behind Apple (1), Samsung (3), Sony (10), and LG (17).

Xiaomi also ranked number one among the top up-and-coming companies:

We asked respondents again in 2014 to name up-and-coming companies–companies that are still relatively young or have yet to reach the scale of the top 50 global giants but are nonetheless making themselves known for innovation.

That makes Xiaomi the only company to make both the up-and-comer list and the top innovator list. Only half of the companies from last year made up-and-comer list again: WhatsApp, Square, Rakuten, and Xiaomi Technology.

BCG surveys 1,500 senior executives from the world’s top companies to gather its data. Across all respondents, BCG found executives feel less confident in their ability to innovate. But companies in rapidly developing economies are more aggressive than their peers.

A majority of strong innovators from the BRIC nations–Brazil, Russia, India, and China–currently generate more than 20 percent of their sales from new products and services created within the past three years.

Xiaomi certainly falls under that criteria. Can it keep a spot on the list for next year?