The announcement of former Google vice president, Hugo Barra of moving to Chinese mobile manufacturer, Xiaomi had come as a shocker in the world of technology. But, if Barra’s plans are executed in a proper way for the Chinese company, companies like – Apple, Google, Amazon and Samsung – will definitely be surprised.
After announcing his departure from Google on his Google+ page last month, Barra in his first interview said that opportunity of working for Xiaomi is his “dream job”.
Talking to AllThings D, the former Android executive said, “To me, right away, it was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, truly a dream job, this idea of building a global company which could be as significant as Google from the ground up.”
Xiaomi has already been creating ripples in the Chinese smartphone market with it unique marketing strategy and lower-price-higher-performance mantra.
The company has already sold over 7 million smartphone units this year and has plans of increasing the performance by about three folds next year.
In just three years of its life, the company has got a market value that is double of a company like BlackBerry that holds $5.5 billion as its market value. After its recent fundraising, Xiaomi is now valued at $10 billion with about 5 per cent hold of country’s smartphone market.
Xiaomi’s Mi 2S smartphone, which was released in April, was the most selling smartphone in China outselling Samsung’s Galaxy S4.
However, all these figures are very limited as the company’s market, at present, is formed only in China and Xiaomi will have to pull a bigger stunt in order to grab developing markets like India, Brazil and Russia. This is where Barra will step in for the company.
As Hugo Barra will be joining as vice president of Xiaomi Global, his responsibility will be to introduce products like Mi 2S smartphones to the rest of the world.
“If I do my job right, in a few years, the world will be talking about Xiaomi in the same way that they talk about Google and Apple today,” Barra says.
Barra knows the platform of Xiaomi’s devices in and out; and the company has already been termed ‘Apple of China’. The combination of Barra and Xiaomi might start giving tough competition to Apple, Samsung, Google and Amazon in near future.
