Xiaomi is one of the most exciting companies in the smartphone making business at the moment. If you want to know how exciting they are you should read the article I wrote about how they could potentially be the next challenger to Apple and Samsung for the crown of smartphone king of the world. News has just broken in the US is that Hugo Barra, the Vice President of product management for Android at Google has left the Mountain View based tech giant for greener pastures at Xiaomi.

The move that was confirmed by Google shortly after the rumour surfaced is a major coup for Xiaomi with Google’s official statement about his departure reading:

“We wish Hugo Barra the best. We’ll miss him at Google and we’re excited that he is staying within the Android ecosystem.”

The statement shows that although Xiaomi uses a forked version of Android called MIUI Google is cognisant of the fact that Xiaomi is playing a major role in spreading the Android ecosystem in China where its main competitor Apple is struggling to gain the kind of market share it enjoys in other markets around the world.

Xiaomi will now have a grace period no where its MIUI OS will have an inside track on upcoming features that Barra will bring with him from Google and will allow them to iterate and move even faster than they already do.

Needless to say, if you weren’t already watching the rising giant that is Xiaomi, you should definitely be paying attention to them now.

Source: Engadget