Wang Lingming (汪凌鸣), vice-president of Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi, has resigned from his position over alleged breaches of a key Chinese public security law.
According a report from iFeng Wang, a star hire who was one of Xiaomi’s senior executives for Africa, has resigned over breaches of article 44 of China’s Public Security Administration Penalty Law (中华人民共和国治安管理处罚法), as well as received a penalty of five days administrative detention.
Article 44 of the Law stipulates detention for five to ten days for obscene treatment of others or deliberate nudity in public, as well as detention of between ten to fifteen days for obscene treatment of the mentally handicapped, the mentally unwell, or people under the age of 14.
Wang was directly brought in by Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun in 2017, officially taking over the sales and services division at the start of 2018.
Inside sources said to 36kr.com that Wang placed strong emphasis on the use of key performance indicators during his time at Xiaomi, as well as introduced a culture of intense competition for promotions.
The measures failed to improve Xiaomi’s performance in key areas however, with domestic phone sales falling to 52 million in 2017 from 55 million the year previously, and its market share seeing a contraction.
In January 2019 Wang was transferred to Xiaomi’s Africa division reporting to Wang Xiang (王翔), while the sales and services division was reorganised as the China region division headed by partner Wang Chuan (王川).
