Samsung may be coming out with Galaxy S22 FE (Fan Edition) after all!
Things are not going well at Xiaomi at the moment, as we reported last week. Major rounds of layoffs had been announced then, but now people at the top of the company are also stepping down. For instance, chief executive Wang Xian is stepping down, as are two founders of the Chinese tech giant. This is said to be taking place because of disappointing results last year.
Misery at Xiaomi
Due to last year's disappointing results, three top executives within the company are stepping down, the Financial Times and others reported. President Wang Xiang will be replaced by Lu Weibing, who was chief executive at subsidiary Redmi in recent years. Also leaving are two other co-founders of Xiaomi, Hong Feng and Wang Chuan.
One of them wrote in an internal letter that Xiaomi is currently facing many difficulties.
Collapsed sales
The Chinese company saw a three-quarter decline in sales and profits and is suffering from, among other things, hindrance due to strict corona measures within the country. The economy within China has also deteriorated, causing consumers to spend less. In the third quarter, Xiaomi's smartphone sales fell nearly 10%. Other phone manufacturers are also seeing sales plummet in China. In the month of October 2022, sales of smartphone devices in the country fell as much as 27%.
Round of layoffs announced
As we pointed out in this blog last week, several thousand employees are being laid off within Xiaomi in a round of layoffs. According to the company, this is a "routine personnel optimisation and organisational streamlining". This is more common in China, layoffs under the guise of business optimisation. In September, the company still had over 35,000 employees, 32,000 of them in home country China. In the global smartphone market, Xiaomi is number three, behind Samsung and Apple. Last year, by the way, the company put over a billion into developing electric cars. Indeed, in total, the company would like to invest around 8.5 billion in electric vehicles. The brand's first car should hit the market in 2024, but it is unclear for now whether these plans will materialise.
What do you think of Xiaomi's smartphones, do you have one?
