In August 2013, the company announced that it was hiring Hugo Barra from Google, where he served as vice president of product management for the Android platform. Barra has declined to comment on the timing of the Google relationships, and stated that he had been in talks with Xiaomi for over a year prior to announcing the move. He was employed as vice president of Xiaomi to expand the company outside of mainland China, making Xiaomi the first company selling smartphones to poach a senior staffer from Google's Android team. Barra's focus was to help Xiaomi grow internationally.