People visit the Mi-store in the Electron Commercial Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on June 4, 2021. China's tech company Xiaomi, known for its smartphones, opened its first Mi-store in Saudi Arabia on Thursday.Photo:Xinhua

Chinese smartphone vendor Xiaomi announced Wednesday that it has completed business registration of its electric vehicle (EV) unit with a registered capital of 10 billion yuan ($1.55 billion), the move of which marked a milestone for the Chinese firm's push in the automotive sector, according to Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun.

Lei has become the legal representative of Xiaomi EV Company Limited and he is leading the team as the company pushes into EV manufacturing.

The Xiaomi EV team has formed a team of about 300 employees, Lei said on his official WeChat account on Thursday.

"Ever since Xiaomi announced to launch the EV business, the company has become the hope to revitalize the automotive industry and a representative to innovate its potential development," Lei said, adding that the company has received over 20,000 resumes since it announced the establishment of a new smart EV and autonomous driving technology division in March.

Xiaomi is committed to investing an estimated $10 billion in total in EV business over the course of the next 10 years, with an initial investment of 10 billion yuan, Lei noted during the March speech.

In a filing sent to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last week, Xiaomi said it had purchased domestic autonomous driving technology firm DeepMotion for $77.4 million.

Xiaomi President Wang Xiang said in a conference call following the release of Xiaomi's second quarter earnings results on August 25 that autonomous driving is the most important technology for smart EVs, and DeepMotion possessed strong R&D capability and experience.

Wang did not say where Xiaomi will build its factory for making EVs or whom the company will partner with, two issues that have been much discussed in the market in recent months.

Earlier in August, Reuters reported that Xiaomi had entered talks with beleaguered real estate giant Evergrande Group to purchase a stake in the latter's automotive unit.

In response, a Xiaomi spokesperson said that the EV unit has been in touch with several automakers but has yet to decide which one to partner with.

The smartphone maker reported better-than-expected revenue growth in the second quarter by 64 percent, with its overseas markets' revenue contributing half where growth posted strong momentum. And its adjusted net profit for the period reached 6.3 billion yuan, surging by 87.4 percent on a yearly basis.