Hugo Barra, the man that is instrumental to Xiaomi’s global reach, has announced that he would be leaving the company after Chinese New Year and plans to return to Silicon Valley to, in his own words, “embark on a new adventure”.
Barra first joined Xiaomi back in 2013 where he took on the position of Vice President of International at the Chinese company. During his tenure at Xiaomi, the Chinese company went from a small China-based startup to one of the fastest growing companies in the world. Since then, Xiaomi has managed to penetrate more than 20 markets around the world. Just last year, Xiaomi managed to earn USD1 billion in revenues from India, marking a huge milestone for the company.
Of course, not everything went exactly to plan of course. Xiaomi’s recent performance shows that the company may no longer be the force it once was as sales performance of the company has dropped considerably. In fact, IDC’s report on the global smartphone market shows that Xiaomi is no longer part of the top five smartphone vendors of 2016.
While Hugo Barra will indeed be leaving the company to return to Silicon Valley, Barra will still be involved with Xiaomi as an “advisor”. As for his successor, Xiaomi has chosen Xiang Wang, the Senior Vice President of Xiaomi, to take over Barra’s position as Vice President of International.
Source: The Verge, Android Authority