Xiaomi has imposed unprecedented penalties on its elder managers in consequence to the outrage caused by the company's payment of 1 of its most bitter critics. This decision led to rebellion among the most loyal supporters of the brand.
The crisis in the Hong Kong stock exchange's technology giant began on Monday 5 January 2026. Then it was Zong Ning – a technological influencer, known as “The Almighty large Bear” and watched by more than 2.5 million people – publically stated that he received money from Xiaomi for promoting the brand.
In China, it is common practice to reward influencers and even conventional media to form media coverage. This is usually done without informing the public, and Chinese society has mostly become accustomed to specified transactions.
However, in this case, the disclosure of the information by Zong himself was not perceived as an act of transparency. On the contrary, this caused a wave of outrage among Xiaomi fans. Comments section on company managers' profiles on Weibo, usually full of appreciation for the brand, flooded a wave of requests for clarification.
"Xiaomi fans are just a tool for them to make money," wrote 1 of them.
"It's so absurd irony that it breaks all the limits of a fan's intellectual endurance," another lamented. "I utilized to defend Xiaomi so fiercely that even out of my own pocket I paid to advance posts of smaller creators who wrote well about the brand. Now that I think about it, I feel like an idiot.”
Such a violent reaction stems from the fact that Zong has not only criticized Xiaomi products for years, but besides personally insulted the brand and its customers. While Xiaomi built her reputation on offering products of excellent value for money alternatively than on luxury (such as Apple), Zong was celebrated for calling budget users of the Redmi line "life losers" and identifying brand supporters as "negative assets".
Zong besides has conflicts with another large Chinese companies. In 2024, Lenovo won a suit with him about fabricating statements attributed to the company's president. In 2020, Midea, a leading Chinese appliance manufacturer, under force from a public boycott was forced to cancel the live broadcast with his participation. The beginnings of his career are besides frequently cited in the context of excessive promotion of potency supplements, which in China is considered to be 1 of the most primitive forms of marketing.
Tuesday (6 January) Xiaomi publically confessed to the conclusion of the financial agreement with Zong, confirmed its break-up and committed that he would never cooperate with him again.
Even before the Zong scandal broke out, he began publishing flattering opinions. late he praised the founder of Xiaomi, Lei Juna, for a four-hour presentation, during which the brand's electrical vehicle was dismantled, claiming that he ‘always respected’ specified ‘involvement and perseverance’. However, these calculated praises did not save the contract. Xiaomi's management felt that the cooperation "has seriously violated the company's rules".
In a uncommon gesture, the company publically punished the vice president and marketing manager of the group, Xu Fei, and the PR Director-General, Xu Jieyun, and the worker straight liable for establishing the cooperation was released.
In an authoritative statement, the technological giant stated that the incidental "deeply hurt Xiaomi fans' feelings". The company reiterated its fundamental motto: “Xiaomi exists thanks to fans”, adding that trust of supporters is “the basis of all success of the company”.
The word “Mi Fan” (米粉) has long been a unique cultural phenomenon in China. As early as 2014, "The fresh York Times" highlighted an highly strong bond between the company and its customers, a relation that blurs the boundary between brand and professed values. This intimacy has its roots in the origins of Xiaomi. At that time, without capital for conventional advertising, the company based its strategy on an online forum where founders and engineers spent many hours regular talking to users, jointly creating an operating strategy with them. This experience has turned customers into stakeholders, building a bottom-up bond that inactive defines the brand.
Therefore, the discovery that the company's PR department was negotiating a "retirement" or marketing agreement with 1 of the most celebrated trolls (and enemies) in the manufacture was for fans an act of unforgivable betrayal.
For this reason, erstwhile the founder of Xiaomi, Lei Jun, publically referred to the case, he stressed that the cooperation was “unacceptable” due to the fact that Zong “continued to attack and humiliate Xiaomi users”. Although public relations frequently search to transform enemies into friends – frequently through money – in Xiaomi's case an emotional deal with fans proved more crucial than conventional PR tactics.
