- Xiaomi had recently shared its plans of making Mi a premium smartphone brand
- The company is yet to launch a successor to Poco F1 smartphone
Manu Kumar Jain, global VP, Xiaomi, took to social media website to announce the formation of Poco as an independent brand. He mentioned in a post that the time is right to let Poco operate on its own.
“Excited to share: Poco will now be an independent brand! What started as a sub-brand within Xiaomi, has grown into its own identity. Poco F1 was an incredibly popular phone. We feel the time is right to let Poco operate on its own. Join me in wishing India Poco all the best,” read a tweet posted by Manu.
Xiaomi, already operates Mi and Redmi brands in India. The news of Poco becoming is quite similar to the news of Realme becoming a independent brand back in time. Realme, before becoming independent, used to work under the umbrella of Oppo.
Excited to share: #POCO will now be an independent brand!
What started as a sub-brand within Xiaomi, has grown into its own identity. POCO F1 was an incredibly popular phone. We feel the time is right to let POCO operate on its own.
Join me in wishing @IndiaPOCO all the best.
— Manu Kumar Jain (@manukumarjain) January 17, 2020
Focus on premium segment?
Raghu Reddy, head, online sales, had recently pointed out that Xiaomi was exploring options to launch only premium category smartphones under the Mi brand. Xiaomi, till now, has only launched one smartphone under the Poco brand. Poco F1 was launched in India in 2018.
The Economic Times had recently quoted Reghu Reddy saying that Xiaomi Technology has set clear portfolios for Redmi and Mi brands back in China. Xiaomi India will be working on implementing the same portfolio for these brands in India in 2020.
It is also to be noted here that Xiaomi has not yet launched the second variant of Poco smartphones. Poco was believed to be Xiaomi’s take on the premium smartphones segment.
Will it be three Xiaomi brands Vs four BBK brands?
Interestingly, BBK, one of Xiaomi’s competitions in the smartphone market, operates four smartphones brands under its umbrella. These include Realme, Oppo, Vivo and Oneplus, with Oneplus being BBK’s take on the premium smartphone market.
Xiaomi, on the other hand, has been focusing on the affordable smartphone segment with Redmi brand till now. Howver, back in China, the company has defined separete portfolios for Redmi and Mi brands. It would now be interesting to see which segment does the Poco target – the one where Oneplus operates or the one where Oppo and Vivo are operational in!
