The success of Xiaomi was really about their price to performance ratio. Which they have been marketing it since its inception. They have been making phones with close to zero profits, and the business was only sustainable when they continue to have VC and money from Government (direct or not) pouring in. The trouble in the ~2014/2015 era was when they tried to make profit, because they have been growing so fast, with so many users they thought their brand has already capture certain mindset. A perfect storm happened as Huawei and Oppo ViVo were dialling up their competitiveness, not to mention their cheekiness ( or may be they really think they are ) against Apple.

So in 2015 ish news was they are running out of cash, and things turn south. But Xiaomi was lucky in that they realize their problem a lot earlier, make changes and keep them a float. And the new Xiaomi is now better and becomes more humble. Compared that to LeTV and LeEco.

Now they have been in talks with many 4G patents holders, once those are settled they will likely enter US and EU market*. ( Hence this PR article )

P.S - Even though you buy Xiaomi's hardware, you really should do yourself a flavour and install clean Android on it.