With all the buzz surrounding the new smartphones revealed over the past month, Xiaomi’s Mi 9 has managed to stand out of the crowd. However, with Xiaomi now leading the market share race in several Asian regions, Xiaomi has warned that the company could be increasing its prices of its devices soon.
Following the division of the Redmi brand and the introduction of the Poco brand from Xiaomi, Xiaomi is considering of moving the Mi lineup forward as a separate entity. And by doing this, Xiaomi plans to captivate the upper-range market with new additions and premium features oriented for the upper-mid-range market. Xiaomi’s Lei Jun, in an interview following the launch of the Mi 9, said:
“We want to get rid of the reputation that our smartphones cost less than 2,000 yuan (about $300). We want to invest more and make better products. In the future, our smartphones could become more expensive, not much but slightly more expensive”
Xiaomi CEO, Lei Jun
For the longest time, Xiaomi has had some of the most confusing lineups under its Mi branding. From the Mi A lineup to the Redmi lineup and then the Redmi Note lineup, Xiaomi had it all. Not only did Xiaomi have a ton of different lineups, but it became even more confusing when the pricing and variants were taken into account.
While all this goes on, Xiaomi’s Redmi subdivision would be responsible for covering the mid-range market with reports even suggesting a Redmi device powered by the Snapdragon 855 SoC under the hood.
With the Mi MiX and Mi brand now under the main brand, Xiaomi would leverage these two ranges by innovating and introducing the best of Xiaomi. Afterall, Xiaomi’s success doesn’t copy into the Chinese smartphone market where Huawei currently dominates.
While Xiaomi says that upcoming device would be “slightly more” expensive from now on, we could expect the next Xiaomi flagship to finally cross the $500 mark. And with Xiaomi now planning to follow OnePlus’s footsteps, we could see a much more flourished brand out of the company. Whether Xiaomi plans to follow OnePlus’s footsteps when it comes to price increases is yet to be seen. However, love it or hate it, that seems to be the case here.
With Xiaomi now out of the way when it comes to budget devices, we can’t wait to see what Xiaomi’s subdivisions, Redmi and Poco, bring to the market given how much support they’ve garnered over the years.
