Founded a measly eight years ago, Xiaomi shot to fame thanks to the Chinese company’s surprisingly capable low-cost smartphones, rapidly branching out into various areas of the thriving IoT industry, and receiving massive funding early on in its evolution from enthusiastic investors.

After inevitably hitting a stagnation point, the so-called “Apple of China” bounced back stronger than ever, surpassing Samsung in India’s essential smartphone market while slowly expanding across Western Europe and ranking fourth overall among the world’s top Q1 2018 vendors.

Far from a hardware money-making machine, Xiaomi is aiming for the world’s largest IPO since Alibaba, but not before proving just how serious its international ambitions have become.

It remains unclear if the US government is going to treat the company as unfairly as Huawei, but one major British carrier is ready to embrace Xiaomi’s “huge range of connected devices.” We’re talking about Three UK, which operates as a subsidiary of CK Hutchison Holdings.

Registered in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Hong Kong, the CK conglomerate is Xiaomi’s newest “global strategic” ally, planning to bring Mi phones to 3 Group stores in Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy and Sweden in addition to the UK.

Several types of “innovative connected” Xiaomi products will soon be sold in the aforementioned European markets by 3-branded wireless service providers, as well as Watson’s Fortress, Superdrug and Kruidvat in Hong Kong, Ireland, the UK and Netherlands.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any details about release dates or the actual devices headed to each region, but this is clearly another important step forward for Xiaomi on its path to world domination.