"The Xiaomi team gave me a surprise home visit. I miss meeting our team and having a big celebration like I have done over the past few years. On January 25, 2022, Manu Kumar Jain (hereinafter referred to as Manu) posted a tweet reminiscing about the past and confessing to the team.
Manu is the No. 1 employee of Xiaomi India, joined Xiaomi in 2014 as the general manager of Xiaomi India, and was promoted to vice president of Xiaomi Worldwide in 2017 due to his outstanding performance.
At the beginning of 2022, Manu posted a number of tweets in a row, recalling his highlight moment in Xiaomi India, as if to say goodbye. Zhixiang network learned from multiple sources that Manu is about to bid farewell to India, and in a new round of business adjustment, he will take over the North American business.
Public reports show that at the end of 2021, Xiaomi carried out a drastic reform of the international business department, in order to open up various regions and channels, focusing on the overseas sales regions originally divided by regions, the international network-wide e-commerce sales department, operators and business development departments divided by channels, and the Indian regional operation department that originally did not belong to the international business department, etc., into the international "sales department", which was responsible for Xiang Zheng and reported to Lu Weibing, president of the international business department.
Independent India was incorporated into the international footprint, and Xiaomi's move was meaningful when Employee No. 1, who had made a name for himself in India, took over North America, which he was not familiar with.
Manu's change has sparked a lot of speculation in the industry, especially the deepening gap between Xiaomi India and its headquarters. For the changes in the Xiaomi India team, on February 8, the Xiaomi public relations team responded to Zhixiang Network that Manu's current position is still global VP, "If there is a personnel change, we will make relevant comments." ”
In 2014, Xiaomi took India as the first stop of internationalization and began a huge journey to the sea. By 2017, Xiaomi, which had only been in India for 3 years, had become the number one smartphone brand in India, and had maintained its leading position ever since. Today, India is not only the starting point for Xiaomi's internationalization, but also its largest overseas market.
However, good flowers do not bloom very often. The situation in India is becoming increasingly uncertain. Since 2020, the Indian authorities have banned hundreds of Chinese apps, foreign investment policies have changed overnight, and the fire has now spread to smart hardware and its upstream and downstream industrial chains, coupled with the peak of Xiaomi's shipments in India in the past two years, it is urgent to find new growth points. In addition, on January 5, 2022, India's Ministry of Finance said that it had issued three notification of causes to Xiaomi India to recover 6.53 billion Indian Rupees (about 558 million yuan) of tax to the company.
Macro business integration, coupled with changes in the external environment, has also made Xiaomi International gradually reduce its dependence on India. Zhao Nan (pseudonym), an informed source, revealed to Zhixiang Network that Xiaomi is beginning to rectify the Indian team, and Manu's position adjustment is the first step.
The "Indian Thunder Army" bid farewell to India
Li Dong (pseudonym), an insider close to Xiaomi, told Zhixiang Network that Xiaomi India has been operating independently of Xiaomi's international team before, and after the integration of business and team, Xiaomi India has also ushered in major changes, the first of which is Manu. "(Xiaomi's) biggest concern for Manu is self-respect. Indians will also be needed for future actual administration, but the authority will be greatly limited. ”
"Compared with Xiaomi's other international teams, Xiaomi India was relatively independent before, and the people sent by the Chinese side in the past have not been able to get involved." Zhao Nan revealed that Xiaomi has begun to adjust its management strategy for India.
"[Manu] now spends every day basking in the sun and drinking tea. Basically, it is in an overhead state. For Manu's stay, Li Dong pointed out that he is now in charge of the North American market, and the actual business has not yet.
Zhixiang network learned from multiple sources that at the end of 2021, when Xiaomi's international business was adjusted, Manu personally flew from India to Beijing. After a brief stay of a few weeks, he returned to his hometown via Dubai.
As for who will succeed Manu after leaving, Zhixiang network learned that Xiaomi is considering Indian CMO Jaskaran Singh Kapany as its head of India. Zhixiang network learned that in 2021, Jaskaran joined Xiaomi India as chief marketing officer (CMO), at that time, this news was confirmed by Manu.
Prior to joining Xiaomi India, Jaskaran spent nearly 6 years as Director of Marketing at Paytm. Under Jaskaran's leadership, Paytm's user base has reached more than 350 million people. He facilitated multi-million dollar deals such as BCCI cricket, IPL, media/advertising, etc., bringing Paytm's structured marketing strategy to the masses.
Prior to that, Jaskaran spent over 6 years as VP of Marketing and E-commerce at ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company and, prior to that, as Senior Account Director at JWT, where he was responsible for launching Reliance Money, an integrated online trading platform in India, offering a wide range of asset classes.
Paytm, also known as "Indian Alipay," is backed by Chinese fintech giant Ant Group. After several years at Paytm, who has Chinese genes, Jaskaran has more or less accumulated a lot of experience dealing with Chinese companies, Chinese.
India is an exception
In 2014, Xiaomi, which was only 4 years old, began to focus on overseas markets, and due to the large population base of the Indian market, similar to the early domestic market, and the low penetration rate of smart phones, there is a great demand for cost-effective mobile phones.
Xiaomi seized the opportunity. Lei Jun brought Inu as an employee of Xiaomi India No. 1 and was in charge of the Indian business. Manu graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, and before joining Xiaomi, co-founded India's local e-commerce company Jabong.
Before joining Xiaomi, Manu also hesitated. "A lot of people tell me not to join Chinese companies. People don't know the truth. Some people have heard that Chinese companies will never give you power, will not give you decision-making power, and everything must be reported back to headquarters. In 2019, Manu said in a public conversation.
In January 2017, Hugo Barain, Xiaomi's then-global vice president, left Xiaomi. Soon, Manu, who made an immortal record in India, filled the vacancy of Xiaomi's global vice president and continued to be responsible for Xiaomi's operations in India, while also involving different functional departments such as sales, after-sales, customer service and manufacturing.
After Manu took the lead in India, Xiaomi took a helicopter.
According to IDC data, in the third quarter of 2017, Xiaomi became the largest mobile phone brand in India with 9.2 million mobile phone shipments and a market share of 23.5%. At that time, Lei Jun said: "This is a very remarkable achievement, a new milestone in the history of Millet's development! ”
A year later, in 2018, unit sales increased by 58.6% year-on-year, and the market share reached 28.9%. Xiaomi entered the Indian market for four years, beating Samsung's 22.4% share. The Indian market already accounts for more than a third of Xiaomi's global sales.
In May 2018, Xiaomi was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and the word "India" appeared 226 times in the full text of the prospectus. In 2017, Xiaomi achieved a staggering 259% increase in India. The revenue of the Indian market reached 8.7 billion yuan, accounting for 1/4 of the overseas market.
Manu No. 1 employee is also the number one hero. India plays an important role in the internationalization of Millet, so India has always been an enclave of Xiaomi internationalization and enjoys a high degree of independent decision-making power. In addition, Manu is vital to Xiaomi India, and he has a fairly high level of decision-making power.
Ray Jun with Manu Kumar Jayn
friction
After xiaomi India's power has grown stronger, the gap with the headquarters has also increased day by day.
Zhao Nan's company is responsible for the after-sales maintenance of Xiaomi screens, and has previously established trust and cooperative relations with Xiaomi in China. Around 2016, Xiaomi's internationalization pace was very fast. After-sales service needs to keep up. However, due to customs regulations, transportation costs, etc., it is unrealistic for India's mobile phones to be sent back to China for repair, so Xiaomi invited Zhao Nan's company to India to provide services for it.
"At that time, Xiaomi had a large amount overseas, basically just taking off, and we were very optimistic about its future." At that time, India did not have many mobile phone supply chain resources, basically all of which were readily available in China, and Chinese companies were more willing to use China's supply chain, so we passed. By the beginning of 2017, Zhao Nan went to India to register the company, and since then he has been providing after-sales service for screen repair for Xiaomi.
At that time, Including Xiaomi, vivo, OPPO LeTV and other Chinese mobile phone and TV brands were mainly distributed in Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi, while vivo and OPPO had factories in Hyderabad, so some upstream and downstream enterprises in the supply chain would also be laid out in these cities, and Zhao Nan's company followed Xiaomi's Headquarters in India and was also located in Bangalore.
"In October 2016, my colleague went to India for the first time, when Xiaomi's office address was still the same building as LeTV, both in the embassy area, but Xiaomi rose very quickly, (the office) slowly became a building, and later even a building was not enough."
Speaking of communication with Xiaomi India, Zhao Nan said a very interesting thing. "Xiaomi will be stationed in Chinese stationed in India, and there are more than 40 people when there are more than 40 people. With Xiaomi, our business has slowly grown, and it has also recruited many Indians. But at that time, we communicated with Xiaomi, basically Chinese communicated with Chinese, and Indians communicated with Indians. ”
Source: Unsplash
At that time, Zhao Nan often ran to the canteen of Xiaomi's Indian headquarters to "rub rice", and saw that there were fewer and fewer Chinese for Xiaomi to eat together. Zhao Nan also moved the idea of returning to China. He said that although many Chinese companies do the Indian market, "Chinese generally do not want to stay in India, and after our domestic employees have been there once, no one wants to return to India." ”
Zhao Nan also further introduced, in fact, Indians do operation is a good hand, they are closer to the Western professional managers, if the model and method is good, Indians can do a very good job. But now, with the Xiaomi India team being monopolized by the Indians, Zhao Nan's company is gradually becoming fully localized and all run by Indians.
Later, with the extension of Xiaomi's Business in India, it began to undertake materials from China, which led to Zhao Nan's company being stuck in the middle and being very passive, and it was difficult to survive only by relying on Xiaomi. Zhao Nan introduced that in order to survive, they later directly transferred to OPPO's spare parts warehouse business.
As a small business that follows large Internet companies to the sea, Zhao Nan also has his helplessness: "It can be said that we are victims of their internal political struggles. Today, Zhao Nan is also slowly letting go of the Indian business and considering turning to Southeast Asia.
And this is just a footnote to Xiaomi India's relationship with headquarters.
De-Indianization
In addition to internal factors, Xiaomi dares to "move" to India, and the external environment cannot be underestimated.
In 2017 and 2018, when Xiaomi broke out in India, Lei Jun layer traveled back and forth between Beijing and Bangalore many times. The millet system is also constantly adding fuel in India. At one point, Xiaomi tried to replicate Xiaomi's complete ecological chain in India.
"In the past four years, we have invested 4 billion yuan in more than 300 companies in China. In the next 5 years, we will invest in 100 companies in India and copy the Xiaomi model to India. We have a variety of services and products, but only focus on the most core things to let partners provide resources, we then integrate them, this is the Xiaomi model, but also the most successful business model in China. We were able to achieve amazing revenue in 7 years thanks to this model. At the end of 2017, Lei Jun said in Bangalore.
However, the changes in Sino-Indian relations, coupled with the impact of the epidemic, have disrupted Xiaomi's deployment in India.
In April, April 2020, the Indian government revised its FDI policy to countries bordering India where their investments in India must be made under the government's path, a move also seen as curbing investment from China.
On July 27, following the decision of India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to ban 59 apps, including TikTok (Douyin International), Weibo, WeChat, UC Browser, etc., another 275 Chinese apps were included in the so-called "list", and more Applications of Chinese Internet companies may be banned by the Indian government.
India's tossing and turning will not stop in 2021. Meanwhile, in October 2021, India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued a notice to Chinese smartphone brands vivo, OPPO, Xiaomi and OnePlus requesting relevant data and details about the phones and their components, and said it could issue a second notice in the coming weeks, involving a request to test these phones.
After September 2015, all mobile phone products entering the Indian market must obtain Indian BIS (Indian Bureau of Standards) certification before customs clearance, and mobile phone products without BIS certification will not be able to enter the Indian market.
A Chinese brand executive previously revealed to Zhixiang that the purpose of the Indian government to explore China's mobile phone parts is to prepare for the next step, curb Chinese mobile phone companies, and restrict the production and operation of parts companies in India.
By early January, Indian authorities issued a statement saying that the Revenue Intelligence Agency (DRI) had issued a notice to Xiaomi Technology India Ltd. to recover 653 million rupees (about 560 million yuan) of tax from the company. According to India's finance ministry, Xiaomi India evaded tariffs by undervaluing it according to an intelligence report, and DRI launched an investigation into the company and its contract manufacturers.
For India's position in Xiaomi's internationalization, Xiaomi responded to Zhixiang Network: "The Indian market is an important part of the international market, we attach importance to all overseas markets that carry out business, and adhere to legal and compliant operations to bring more good products to everyone in the world." ”
India may still be important to Xiaomi, but it is no longer the brightest "chess piece" in the international chessboard.