Xiaomi was recently crowned the top smartphone brand in the world, cementing its status as one of the most popular manufacturers around. Their most notable lineup of smartphones is of course the Mi-series, like the Xiaomi Mi 11. But in China, it’s actually known as simply the Xiaomi 11.
That’s about to change though. Xiaomi has recently confirmed to XDA Developers that from Q3 of this year onwards, they’ll be rebranding the Mi-series to just Xiaomi. It’s part of Xiaomi’s effort to unify their global brand with its products. They also state that it’ll likely take them awhile to fully consolidate the new branding.
“Starting in 2021 Q3, Xiaomi’s product series “Mi” will be renamed to “Xiaomi”. This change will unify our global brand presence and close the perception gap between the brand and its products. This change may take some time to take effect in all regions.
With the introduction of the new brand identity, two distinct product series will sit beneath the parent brand. Xiaomi products represent the pinnacle of technology and offer a premium experience. Redmi products bring big innovation at a more accessible price point and are aimed at younger audience.
This differentiation is also reflected in our updated logos, with both the Xiaomi and Redmi logotypes under the parent brand logo. The product series naming convention — Xiaomi and Redmi — will also be applied to our ecosystem and IoT products over time,” – Xiaomi, in a statement to XDA Developers
Basically, you can expect to see the main Mi-series devices labelled as Xiaomi products instead. The Mi 11 lineup for instance will now be known as the Xiaomi 11, which is the same as how they brand it in their home market of China for awhile now. This change will also affect their other devices like smartwatches, TVs and ecosystem products too.
Curiously, while their statement does mention Redmi, it doesn’t give us much detail about the Poco brand. Both Redmi and Poco were spun off from Xiaomi a while back, and while Xiaomi’s statement implies that Redmi maintains its more value-oriented position in the market, Poco’s place compared to Xiaomi remains to be seen.
We’ve already seen their rebranding efforts take place before this. The recently launched Mix 4 dropped the ‘Mi’ from its name. The Mi Pad 5 is also known as the Xiaomi Pad 5 in China. With Xiaomi Malaysia set to make another product launch soon next month, it’ll be curious to see if they launch with the ‘Mi’ moniker or not.
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