For Android,year 2013 is one of the worst years out for them. First it was their key senior developer, and then was the VP of Google, Hugo Barra. Google’s Android did have managed to lose some of the very important persons under them, but hope that Sundar Pichai would be able to put the team on tracks.
Former VP of Google, Hugo Barra who recently announced that he was hanging his boots at Google and would move to Xiaomi, revealed some key Q&A in a recent talk with tech blog AllThingsD.
He talked off from various topics, starting from why he went out there to what do he will do next in Xiaomi. To remind you, Hugo Barra has joined Xiaomi as Vice President of Xiaomi Global and will basically be looking after the company’s global expansion.
Here are some excerpt from the exclusive interview with Hugo Barra,
-
Why Did he chose Xiaomi over Google?
“To me, right away, it was a 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. It was just something that I will never come across, with a team whom I know, with a company that has DNA similar to my own and, on top of that, to live in Asia for at least some period of time.”
-
What did he loved at Xiaomi?
“The defining characteristic of Xiaomi is that in its DNA is a focus on users. Every question, every piece of feedback, gets a response, and a significant number of new features were suggested by customers.”
-
On his business plans and venture with Xiaomi
“There is no question the phone business is very low margin today, but they want to get to a place where they can sell the device at cost and then sell high-margin services to make that phone experience even better.”
-
On his plans for Xiaomi
Barra says that he will focus on more rapidly developing markets first as a part of Xiaomi international expansion,
“I think that’s the sweet spot for Xiaomi — places like India, Russia, Indonesia, Latin America, Thailand. It’s where the equation of quality and affordability works, because it’s in those markets you can replicate what the company has done in China.” So by his words, he his clearly suggesting that his main move would be focusing on Developing Markets such as Asia first, then of later US and UK.
