We’ll forgive you if you haven’t heard of this Chinese smartphone manufacturer, which isn’t a household name worldwide compared to the likes of Lenovo and ZTE. Nevertheless, you might want to do some research on these guys, as the company had just launched the MI2, a device whose specs include 2 GB RAM and (a decidedly non-vanilla version of) Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

Photo credit: Xiaomi

The handset will only set you back $315 for an unlocked version.

Don’t mistake Xiaomi for being a pushover just because the company has been around a mere two years. Its brain trust includes former bigwigs from Google, Motorola and Microsoft – the Google connection is interesting because Xiaomi’s own OS, MIUI, is based on the Android platform. Unlike Android, which releases new versions of its OS every few months, a new version of MIUI is available every week. No wonder Xiaomi’s popularity is increasing exponentially.

Regarding the device itself, the MI2 will come with a tweaked version of Jelly Bean for the Chinese market. It also includes a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor clocked at 1.5 GHz, high-definition display with 1280 x 720 resolution, 2 GB RAM and a 2,000 mAh battery.

That’s more than worth it if you’re talking about a phone that only costs $315 in American currency. We can’t help but wonder, though, how the company earns profit from such an inexpensive device.

We won’t dwell on that, but Xiaomi seems to be raking in the green – it claims to have earned $1 billion in revenue and sold over 3 million handsets in the first half of 2012.