After shying away from the U.S. smartphone market all these years, Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi is finally preparing to enter the second largest smartphone market in the world.

The company will be employing the same tactics it uses in China and India to sell its smartphones in the US. This includes heavily promoting its devices on social media and selling devices through online channels.

While Xiaomi has not provided any timeframe as to when it plans to enter the market, Hugo Barra said in an interview with Bloomberg that it will enter the market “in the near future.”

“The U.S. is a market that we definitely have in our sights,” Barra said on Bloomberg Television. “We will lead with social media, with the channels that allow us to get in touch with the young generation that are enthusiastic about new technology. We are definitely going there.”

Up until now, Xiaomi has shied away from the US smartphone market due to its weak patent portfolio. Stepping outside the Asian market without a strong patent portfolio would have been a disaster for the company as it would have made it an easy target for patent trolls. To workaround this problem, Xiaomi acquired nearly 1,500 patents from Microsoft earlier this year.

Xiaomi has managed to get away from entering the US smartphone market all these years thanks to its compelling products which it offers at unbelieveable value for money prices. However, the company has been losing ground to other Chinese rivals like Vivo and Oppo over the last year or two which has forced it to reconsider its plans to enter the U.S. smartphone market.