On January 3, Xiaomi issued a declaration, saying Redmi will be an independent brand. The official announcement will be made on January 10, where the initial Redmi-series cameraphone is assumed to be revealed. It’s gossiped the pioneer will be called the Redmi Pro 2. It is going to sport a 48MP image sensor and a Snapdragon 675 chip. Apart from this, the former Gionee president, Lu Weibing signed a contract with Xiaomi. So this made a massive stir in the net, and many smartphone users began thinking he will lead the new independent brand of Xiaomi. But the latter hurried to disprove this rumor, saying he will be responsible for POCO and not for the Redmi-branded products.
As you view, it’s not that simple. So we decided to deliver some clarifications and understand whether it was the instantly time to separate Redmi from Xiaomi and whether it is likely to fight against Honor, as assumed.
Why now
We have idea Xiaomi has had two smartphone lines in face of Mi and Redmi. The smartphones from the former series have been considered flagship models, although the latter always arrived in with cost-effective smartphones, belonging to the mid-to-low-end categories.
However, this has changed in recent years. The new MIX series emerged. And the Xiaomi cameraphone diversification modified accordingly. Presently, the prefix in front of Xiaomi phone name indicates its value range. Say, the MIX series approaching with black technologies are valued over 3000 yuan ($435), the flagship series models arrive at 2000 – 3000 yuan ($290 – 435), and the middle-to-high-end models are priced at 1400 – 2000 yuan ($203 – 290). At least, this classification was provided by Xiaomi co-founder and president Lin Bin at the Xiaomi Mi Play launch conference.
By the way, the Xiaomi Mi Play is a fairly key product in this context. Look! The Mi series has few models with Incredibly weak options and high prices. The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite was the only model in recent years to price tag 1999 yuan. On the contrary, the manufacturer has started making way improved devices for the Redmi line. Say, one of the most popular phones from this family is the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5/Note 5 Pro. Only in India, it has sold higher than 5 million units in 4 months. Quite, the Redmi Note series telephones have usually been best-sellers because of to their attractive price-over-performance ratio. In this sense, the native Redmi low-end gadgets were the most-selling telephones during Double 11.
We also should take into consideration that the starting value of the Redmi Note 5 was 1099 yuan ($160). But let’s obtain back to the Xiaomi Mi Play. As you remember, it went on sale at the exact same pricing. Thus, the prices of Mi smartphones and Redmi phones are presently crossing. The Mi Play is the perfect example. This easily means the concept Xiaomi has been following to due to the fact its initial days doesn’t work anymore. Additionally, the ‘fighting’ of its own products can be regarded as a Great signal for the splitting of the Mi and Redmi.
Redmi or Xiaomi
As for the origin of Xiaomi, it could be dated back to 1950s. Whenever China was fighting with Japan, it fought them back with xiaomi and guns. So xiaomi represents solidity, and now it is a kind of cereal in the day-to-day life of Chinese. Shortly, xiaomi is quite important in China. According to the official introduction, they call their smartphones Xiaomi, what has two meanings: one is they really should work hard to lay a solid foundation; second, they really should deliver their phones pretty well known in people’s eyes, and even deliver guys can’t live without having those handsets.
In translation from Chinese, Xiao means little, little, young, whereas Mi means rice. Seems to be something is simple and Xiaomi is translated as a small rice. But how to pronounce Xiaomi? Most Americans first heard of Xiaomi when Hugo Barra, former Google VP in charge of Android gadget management announced he was leaving Google to join Xiaomi. And most Americans (and not only they) have been struggling to say the company’s name ever because.
Of course, Barra tried to help them, saying the perfect way to pronounce Xiaomi is to ‘think of show me and then pronounce the first word as if it [were] shower.’ Technically, the initially syllable is additional SHIAO’ than ‘SHOW,’ however the change is relatively subtle to most American ears. BBC even came in with an article explaining how to pronounce Xiaomi. As you see, the name Xiaomi causes some difficulties for non-Chinese speakers.
In this sense, Redmi is a lot more international. In translation from Chinese, it means red rice, and it’s way easier to pronounce.
What is the main goal of Redmi?
That’s a ordinary practice for smartphone brands that have a several lines. Huawei has done it a few several years ago, separating the Honor brand. OPPO did it last year, releasing the Realme brand. The exactly is done by Xiaomi. Numerous think Xiaomi has separated the Redmi brand to compete with Honor, which has been gaining momentum. When Xiong Junmin, Honor vice president was asked about this, he said the competition between Honor and Xiaomi has already ended. However if someone wants to re-start it, they are ready.
Particularly, Honor said that the competition between Honor and Xiaomi has long since ended. But what’s extra interesting, they think Honor has won all the races. Xiong Junmin said Honor is presently far ahead when it comes to the overall sales quantity or the market overall performance of the mid-to-high-end product line. According to the formal information,, Honor has been ranked initially in China’s sales line for nine consecutive quarters.
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Income of 3 consecutive generations of the Honor 8, Honor 9, and Honor 10 have surpassed the Xiaomi Mi 5, Mi 6, and Mi 8. The Honor Magic 2 is way a lot more innovative and additional powerful than the Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 from the same category. Honor’s V series smartphones have completely destroyed the Xiaomi’s Note line. The Honor V20 is already out and it is a head higher than any cameraphone of Xiaomi, estimated at 3000 yuan. Thus, there is with no device to compare.
In fact, in the past several years, Redmi has been understood as Xiaomi’s entry-level brand. Above the years, it has developed a quantity of ‘national-level’ phones and has become a primary contributor to Xiaomi’s phone sales. Now Redmi is no longer just a ‘national smartphone’ however moreover going to the world.
According to Xiaomi CEO, Lei Jun, the Mi and Redmi brands are presently separated, and each develops in different directions. In few sense, this frees Mi, and the latter can play much better currently. At the exactly time, he emphasized that Redmi will focus on cost-effectiveness and the e-commerce markets, even though the Mi brand will focus on mid- to high-end and fresh retail markets. This is what Xiaomi has been doing in the initially years of its activity.
Previously, the Mi brand mainly targeted the value range of 2000 yuan to 3000 yuan, promoted through a number of Sure keywords, these types of as ‘innovation’, ‘technology and art’, etc., while the main battlefield of Redmi has been in the thousand-yuan machine market. Thus, the latter was promoted via the keywords of ‘high quality’, ‘the most cost-effective’ and ‘national smartphone’. In Xiaomi’s see, the two brands have presently had strong independence, and the conditions for independent operation have matured.
It is not difficult to foresee that in the future Redmi will no longer be confined to the thousand-yuan machine niche. It will come in with extra price range and even flagship smartphones and form a direct competitive relationship with few Xiaomi products. The success of Huawei and Honor has proven that internal resource sharing and healthy competition are extra conducive to the healthy growth of two brands.
It is assumed that at the press conference on January 10, a new smartphone with a 48MP camera will be officially released. It’s gossiped, the alleged Redmi Pro 2 will be Additionally packed with the Sd 675 cpu. In this sense, it will supply improved performance than the most affordable Mi handset, the Xiaomi Mi Play, what is powered by an Helio P35.
As for this cpu, the Sd 675 is a mid-range SoC unveiled by Qualcomm in the second half of 2018. It uses the fresh Kryo 460 architecture, an octa-core design, and a CPU clock speed of 2.0GHz. It is moreover paired with an Adreno 612 GPU and Qualcomm’s third-generation multi-core artificial intelligence engine. In the AI application, the in general experience improvement is up to 50%, in comparison to the previous generation Snapdragon 670.
If this is the exact same model (M1901F9T) passed TENAA certification, then we have idea some of its major attributes, like a 5.84-inch display, a battery ability of 2900mAh, and the MIUI 10 system based on Android deep customization.
Well, if the Redmi Pro 2 is going to be the initially smartphone of Redmi, then this is a bit confusing. There are 2 48MP Chinese telephones and both are flagship models – the Huawei Nova 4 and the Honor V20. However it’s a matter of time to view these types of a digital camera scanner on other models as Sony launched it in summer, and this CMOS will appear on other models soon.
Who will lead Redmi?
Before Xiaomi earlier the independence of the Redmi brand, Lei Jun noted via his Weibo channel that the former president of Gionee, Lu Weibing officially joined Xiaomi. Really, 2 weeks ago, it was reported that Lu Weibing would join Xiaomi Company as vice president and be responsible for overseas markets. In fact, he himself said in an interview that he would Certain join Xiaomi, however the specific position is subject to the official announcement. So we should keep waiting around for January 10 in order to have idea who will lead the Redmi brand.
Conclusion
In 2018, the Chinese cameraphone market weakened, and the market functionality of various manufacturers has become more differentiated. Xiaomi’s phones were chased by Huawei, Honor, and other top brands. A number of mid-to-high-end models introduced by Xiaomi have In addition been overshadowed by them. Many hurried to say Xiaomi is dying. At the similar time, the Redmi series was ‘mutually smashed’ with several models of its own Mi 8 SE, Mi 8 Lite, and Mi Play. Appears to be the Mi brand has begun making pleasant mid-rangers, even though the Redmi overstayed on what it had. In 2018, there has been almost no new design on the Redmi models. That’s why its position was weakened.
In terms of competing products/brands, one of the biggest obstacles, Honor, has already become the initial Internet phone brand in China. Its GPU Turbo, Chip Turbo, LINK Turbo, punch-hole screen, 7nm chipset, and other technical solutions have earned abundant attention, and have already threatened the existing status of Xiaomi’s smartphone business.
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For Lei Jun, on the one hand, the Redmi functionality is not satisfactory and is in the actually passive state. On the other hand, it ties the hands of Mi. So Xiaomi has had 2 choices – either to bury the Redmi brand or to give it an independence. They chose the second variant. Maybe, this is a improved solution because the separate independent operation and internal competition could deliver the Xiaomi brand much better and stronger.