China’s smartphone giant Xiaomi slashes workforce: reports

Chinese language smartphone maker says it has applied routine “personnel optimisation and organisational streamlining”.

Xiaomi Corp, one in all China's largest smartphone makers, has begun mass layoffs, in response to Hong Kong newspaper report [File: Aly Song/Reuters]

Xiaomi Corp, one in all China’s largest smartphone makers, has begun mass layoffs, slashing as much as 15 % of its workforce, a Hong Kong-based newspaper has reported, citing social media posts and Chinese language media.

Social media platforms corresponding to Weibo, Xiaohongshu and Maimai have been flooded with posts by laid-off workers, with the layoffs going down in a number of items of the corporate’s smartphone and web companies enterprise, the South China Morning Put up reported on Tuesday.

Xiaomi had 35,314 employees as of September 30, the paper reported, the overwhelming majority of them primarily based in mainland China.

The layoffs, if confirmed, would have an effect on 1000's of employees, a lot of whom not too long ago joined the corporate following a hiring spree that started final yr.

A Xiaomi spokesperson didn't touch upon the reported layoffs instantly however mentioned the corporate had undergone routine streamlining.

“Xiaomi not too long ago applied routine personnel optimisation and organisational streamlining, with affected events totalling lower than 10 % of whole workforce,” the spokesperson instructed Al Jazeera. “These affected have been compensated in compliance with native laws.”

The reported layoffs come simply months after the smartphone maker introduced audacious plans to problem Apple’s dominance in high-end smartphones.

In February, Xiaomi chief govt Lei Jun mentioned Xiaomi was in a “warfare” with Apple and had set its sights on turning into China’s largest high-end model within the subsequent three years.

Xiaomi in November reported a 9.7 % fall in third-quarter income amid China’s harsh “zero-COVID” pandemic restrictions and weakening client demand. Smartphone revenues, which account for 60 % of whole gross sales, fell 11 % year-on-year, Xiaomi mentioned.

Xiaomi loved a surge in gross sales in 2021 as Washington-imposed sanctions hobbled Huawei Applied sciences’s enterprise in the USA, earlier than reporting its first-ever quarterly decline in income in Could.

With Xiaomi’s inventory value tumbling practically 50 % for the reason that starting of the yr, the corporate has sought out new areas for progress. These efforts embody a foray into electrical automobiles, with mass manufacturing scheduled to start in 2024.