Chang Cheng, former head of Lenovo China’s smartphone unit, has joined Xiaomi as vice president to oversee the company’s handset products, Xiaomi’s founder and CEO Lei Jun said on his Weibo microblog Thursday.

“On the first day of 2020, (I am) working hard to achieve (my) dreams,” Chang replied to Lei on Weibo, adding that he felt very “excited” about his new job at Xiaomi.

Lei also announced, in a New Year’s letter, that Xiaomi will invest at least 50 billion yuan ($7.18 billion) in 5G, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT) over the next five years. “2020 will be a year for Xiaomi to make breakthroughs in expanding its 5G business,” Lei stressed. In October, China’s three major telcos all launched commercial 5G services, and just over a month later, Xiaomi’s budget brand Redmi unveiled its first 5G smartphone, whose lower price surprised many in the industry.

Chang Cheng’s appointment comes two days after he announced his resignation from Lenovo in a post on the same platform, in which the industry veteran said that “everything you love is very likely to be lost. But in the end, love will return in a different way.”

Chang joined Lenovo in 2000 as the director of research and development for its notebook business. In 2015, he was promoted to CEO of Zuk Mobile, a smartphone subsidiary of Lenovo, and three years later, he was named head of Lenovo China’s smartphone unit.

Contact reporter Ding Yi (yiding@caixin.com)

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