Xiaomi Teases Its Next-Gen Phone, Thought to Be Revealed Later Today [UPDATED]

Oh, you tease! Xiaomi shows the eco packaging for its next-gen phone - but not the phone itself.

After the success of the first China-made Xiaomi phone, the follow-up is very eagerly awaited. It’d be no exaggeration to say that the next-gen Xiaomi phone will be, to China, like a new iPhone launch, the second coming of Christ, and Elvis riding down Shanghai’s Bund on the back of a T-Rex – all rolled into one. OK, that’d be a gross exaggeration. But the wait is almost over as the startup Xiaomi company is this morning teasing its next phone which looks set to launch later today. With the Weibo hashtag “Xiaomi Phone 2,” the Beijing-based firm has just teased the packaging for the new phone (pictured right), describing the box as “exquisite” and “environmentally friendly.”

[UPDATED one day later: Turns out the reveal might well be on August 16, and Xiaomi was just going for some long-running viral marketing with its box photos].

Gadget blog GizChina notes that Xiaomi founder Lei Jun has also been tweeting out cryptic teasers on his own Weibo account. Referring to the first-gen phone’s moniker, he wrote: “Xiaomi M1 + Xiaomi M1 = ……” My algebra is pretty lousy, but the answer could well be “M2.” Aside from that, Xiaomi seems to have done a fairly good job of keeping its new model under wraps, though we have seen a purported leaked protoype in blurrycam shots.

A Xiaomi representative didn’t immediately respond to our query about any launch event today, so we’ll watch Weibo closely for any more teasers or announcements.

Last week, Xiaomi claimed that it raked in nearly $1 billion in sales revenue in 2012 H1 from its sole smartphone model. Earlier in the year Lei Jun revealed that they’d sold three million units of the Android-based device in total up to that point.