Manu Kumar Jain has been appointed as new vice president of Xiaomi. The news comes shortly after Global VP Hugo Barra announces to join Facebook. Barra will be leading Oculus’ VR efforts within the social network. Barra used to be face of the brand, who presented the keynote at every event. Before joining Facebook, Hugo Barra was the Vice President of Product Development for Android at Google. His exit is seen as a big blow to the company’s international ambitions.
Manu Kumar Jain joined company back in June 2014. Jain used to work with Jabong earlier. He was responsible for Xiaomi in India. Under Jain’s leadership, firm’s operations in India stretched from a small team into the second largest smartphone vendor in the country with 10.7% market share.
Xiaomi Inc. is a privately owned Chinese electronics company headquartered in Beijing. It designs, develops, and sells smartphones, mobile apps, laptops, and related consumer electronics. It has become the 2nd largest smartphone manufacturer as per IDC’s Q4 CY16 quarterly smartphone tracker. Therefore, It will be interesting to see if Jain picks up where Barra left off as India is indeed an important market for the company.
Jain’s promotion is surely a signal that India will continue to be an important market for company. Also, he will have a vital role in maintaining company’s momentum in the country that is Xiaomi’s biggest market outside of China with over $1billion sales last year. The sales shot in the third and fourth quarter after the launch of Redmi 3S and Redmi 3S Prime budget phones in the sub Rs 10,000 segment.
Apart from being the VP of the company, Jain will also be managing director, Xiaomi India.
