Xiaomi’s global vice president and former head of its Indian arm Manu Kumar Jain announced his resignation on Monday after about nine years stint at the company. The development comes amidst the ongoing legal tussle between the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Xiaomi over the alleged violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) by the company.
“Change is the only constant in life! Last 9 years, I’m lucky to have received so much love that it makes this goodbye so difficult. Thank you all. The end of a journey also marks the beginning of a new one, full of exciting opportunities. Hello to a new adventure!” Jain said in a tweet.
Jain spearheaded the launch of Xiaomi in India in 2014.
He joined the company in May 2014 as Country Manager and moved to the larger role of President for the Indian sub-continent to manage the business in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka.
“After nine years, I am moving on from the Xiaomi Group. I feel confident that now is the right time, as we have strong leadership teams across the world. I wish the Xiaomi teams globally all the best and hope they achieve even greater success,” Jain said.
He was promoted to the position of Global Vice President in January 2017.
In mid-2021, Jain shifted his base to Dubai.
“Our expanding scale of operations helped generate more than 50,000 jobs in India. After building a strong team and business, I wished to help other markets with our learnings. With this intention, I moved abroad about 1.5 years ago (in July 2021), and subsequently joined the Xiaomi International team,” he said.
The ED started action against Xiaomi about a year after Jain moved to Dubai.
During his tenure, Xiaomi became the top-selling smartphone brand in India in 2017 as per market analyst estimates even after a few controversies around security-related issues with the company.
Xiaomi allayed concerns by setting up data centres in India to store customers’ and other business’ data.
“The first few years were full of ups and downs. We started as a one-person start-up, working from a small little office. We were the smallest amongst the hundreds of smartphone brands, that too with limited resources and no prior relevant industry experience. But due to the efforts of a fantastic team, we were able to build one of the most loved brands in the country,” Jain said.
In January 2018, Xiaomi attracted investment from Ratan Tata.
Jain was instrumental in getting Xiaomi smartphones and later television manufactured in India.
According to Counterpoint Research, the company led the Indian smartphone market with a 20 percent volume market share in 2022. Xiaomi, however, slipped to third position after Samsung and Vivo in the October-December 2022 quarter.