About 4 million units of the Xiaomi Mi 5 just hit the shelves for its first flash sale in China, but they weren't enough to let everyone get their hands on it.

In a record-setting event, 16.8 million customers registered for the smartphone, and in anticipation of that jaw-dropping number, the manufacturer pushed out as many as it can for the first batch, which was obviously not enough. To put it differently, each and every one Mi 5 sold like hotcakes within a couple of minutes.

Unfortunately, that means that other consumers who weren't able to grab one will have to wait for a few months again. On a positive note, Xiaomi is putting more effort in delivering its coveted device, as it has asked manufacturing partners Foxconn and Inventec to boost production.

The next big shipment could take a while to materialize, though, and it's safe to bet that it'll arrive sometime in April or May. At any rate, a second flash sale will be held next week on March 8 at 10:00 a.m. Beijing time, and it could be an open sale instead. However, that's still unclear.

Needless to say, history will repeat itself, where the Mi 5 will be out pretty quickly again, as millions of customers are still fervently out to get one.

Housing a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820, the Mi 5 Standard edition loaded with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage and the High edition packed with 3 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage were the only ones available at the sale.

Sporting a ceramic back with 4 GB worth of RAM and 128 GB of internal storage, the Mi 5 Special Edition was nowhere in sight, and Xiaomi still hasn't released details regarding the availability of this model.

Speaking of availability, the Mi 5 is currently limited to China for now, but the smartphone maker will extend to the U.S. market sometime next year.

The Mi 5 is no doubt an impressive flagship, so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise why it's selling so well in China.