Xiaomi’s car unit has completed an organisational change and formally established an International Business Department. Yu Liguo, a vice president of the car business, will serve concurrently as general manager of the new department, reporting on two lines to group chief executive and car unit president Lei Jun and to group president Lu Weibing.
Below the department sits an international marketing division, which itself reports to Yu and to group vice president and chief marketing officer Xu Fei. The structure covers GTM, sales, network development, delivery and logistics, user service, general management and regional offices abroad, which is the full chain from market strategy to channel building to delivery and after-sales.
From a task force to a division
Xiaomi set up an overseas business preparatory group in May 2026, also led by Yu, to handle early market research, regulatory adaptation and channel discussions. The change converts that group into a standing department, which the company frames as the shift from preparation to systematic execution.
The reporting lines are worth noting. A car-unit vice president answering to both the group chief executive and the group president is how Xiaomi signals that overseas car sales are a group-level priority rather than an experiment inside one business unit.
The 2027 plan and the German dealers
Xiaomi plans to begin global rollout in the second half of 2027 and to enter Europe first. At IFA 2026 the company signed agreements with eight leading German dealer groups to build the overseas sales network, and it plans to enter right-hand drive markets in the first half of 2028.
The company’s own statement acknowledges the difficulty: Europe brings strict regulation and intense local competition, and Xiaomi expects multiple practical obstacles as it goes.
Why the channel comes first
Most Chinese carmakers entering Europe have started with product and price, then looked for distribution. Xiaomi is doing the opposite, locking dealer groups before the vehicles are homologated for European sale.
That sequencing reflects where the bottleneck actually is. Type approval is a known process with a known cost. A credible retail and service network in Germany, with the financing, trade-in and workshop capacity that fleet buyers expect, is not something that can be bought quickly at the last minute. Dealer groups choose which brands to take on years ahead.
It also tells you what Xiaomi expects the product argument to be. The company is not positioning as a low-cost importer that can rely on aggressive pricing, because a dealer network built on eight established German groups is not a discount channel.
The unresolved question is tariff and local content. Selling imported cars into Europe in 2027 means selling into whatever trade regime exists then, and Xiaomi has not disclosed any European production plan.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original Gasgoo report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience. The full original (in Chinese) is at https://auto.gasgoo.com/news/202611/9I70477366C109.shtml.