Architect of Xiaomi’s India Growth Departs From the Company
(Bloomberg) -- Manu Kumar Jain, the executive responsible for steering Xiaomi Corp. to the top of India’s smartphone vendor ranks, has quit the Chinese device maker.
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Jain, who last served as a global vice president for the Beijing-headquartered company and was previously the head of its India unit for more than seven years, has resigned, he announced on Twitter on Monday.
“After nine year years, I am moving on from the Xiaomi Group,” Jain tweeted. “Over the next few months, I will take some time-off, before taking up my next professional challenge.”
Jain joined Xiaomi in 2014 to head up its expansion efforts in India. He crafted a strategy based on flash sales of smartphones on e-commerce websites such as Flipkart and Amazon.com Inc.’s local unit, making Xiaomi an aspirational brand in a highly price-sensitive market. Paired with a colorful social media presence, Jain’s approach helped Xiaomi outsell South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co., the global smartphone leader, in India.
He also led Xiaomi’s expansion into brick-and-mortar stores and oversaw the broadening of its portfolio to include smart televisions and home products such as air purifiers. But the final year of his tenure in India coincided with the start of a decline in Xiaomi’s local business.
Jain abruptly departed from India in 2021 to become a global vice president for Xiaomi, based in Dubai. On Monday, Jain said this move was to help other markets with learnings from India.
His exit from the company comes as regulatory scrutiny and competitive pressure in the country intensify. Raghu Reddy, Xiaomi’s chief business officer in India, resigned last month. The company is also undergoing a broader executive overhaul after a year of disappointing sales.
Xiaomi was among the Chinese companies targeted by India’s government as relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors chilled after the deadliest fighting in decades erupted along a disputed Himalayan border site in 2020. Indian authorities have accused Xiaomi of illegally remitting money overseas, which it has denied.
--With assistance from Gao Yuan.
(Updates with comment from Jain in third paragraph.)
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