Who has Samsung and Apple running scared? This new Chinese smartphone maker, who just earned $1 billion!

Another Chinese tech company has jumped up the rankings to dominate new markets, this time in the hotly contended arena of smartphones.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Nicknamed "The Apple of China," Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has become the fourth-largest smartphone vendor in the world after just three years, and its CEO and founder, Lei Jun, raised more than $1 billion during a $45 billion valuation.

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The company is also the largest smartphone vendor in China, and runs the Android OS, but is about half the price as phones from Samsung, HTC and Motorola.

The company's nickname, while cute, is also accurate. The 45-year-old Jun often dresses, speaks and acts like former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and runs his company in a similar manner.

The products are also very close to Apple products, in fact, suspiciously so. Both the software and hardware of these new products are similar to those from Apple, and the head designer of Apple, Jony Ive called the Xiaomi designs "theft".

Jun began his career in the tech market with Kingsoft, a Chinese clone of Microsoft, in the 1990s. Eventually he became CEO, but resigned in 2007 after taking the company public.

In 2010, while being the eighth-richest person in China, he formed Xiaomi with a former Google China executive, starting the meteoric rise of the top Chinese smartphone company.

While Samsung remains the top smartphone vendor in the world, last quarter it suffered a severe 60% drop in profits, which it blamed largely on cheaper smartphone makers (for example, a Samsung phone will cost about $600, while a Xiaomi phone costs just about $300).

It may not be long before Samsung gives up its top spot to the cheaper Chinese alternative.

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