Hugo Barra Leaves Xiaomi For Facebook VR Position; Mi 6, Redmi Maker Skips MWC 2017: Crisis Ahead For China’s “Apple”?

What is going on at Xiaomi? The Chinese mobile giant made the headlines this week in the tech world went it was made known that its top executive Hugo Barra is leaving the company “for personal reasons,” but will take the vice president for virtual reality position at Facebook.

Trusted Reviews said Barra, who is a former Google executive, was Xiaomi’s Vice President of International for the last three-and-a-half years, and had been instrumental in the Beijing company’s efforts to become a leader in the global mobile market. In his statement, Barra said he’ll be moving to Silicon Valley, and pointing to homesickness (and probably the capital’s worsening air pollution) as reasons for his decision to leave Xiaomi.

No one would have anticipated that he’ll be moving to Facebook following his resignation, (even after the fact that he published his statement on a Facebook post), but it was a shocker in the tech industry to know that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hired Barra to lead his company’s virtual reality efforts.

Recently, a spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that Xiaomi will be skipping the 2017 Mobile World Congress, which has been a favorite venue to launch new products. The tech site said the event was used to launch Mi5 through a press event that was live-streamed last year. In 2015, Barra took part in an on-stage interview and shared about his former company’s plans.

Moreover, Barra’s departure might probably be a signal that the company is purportedly struggling with its overgrowth, according to Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun. TechCrunch also noted that despite stellar sales figures in India, the company, for the first time, has yet to reveal their worldwide sales figures.