Poco is moving ahead as an independent brand globally away from Xiaomi.
Poco was launched as a sub-brand of Xiaomi in 2018. Poco hit the headlines with Poco F1’s success. Yet, it never grew out of Xiaomi as almost all its launches were rebadged versions of Redmi phones (For example, Poco M2 Pro was said to be a rebadged avatar of Redmi Note 9 Pro, Poco M2 was Redmi 9 redux, and Poco F2 Pro was Redmi K30 Pro clone.)
Poco was primarily thought up by Xiaomi to take on OnePlus.
But now Poco Global's social media handle has confirmed its separation from Xiaomi as an independent brand.
Poco's move is similar to that of Realme which began its journey as a sub-brand of Oppo.
No difference on the ground
POCO Brand is going independent! To POCO fans: We would like to invite you all to join our new journey ahead! pic.twitter.com/kPUMg5IKRONovember 24, 2020
Interestingly, Poco had first announced in January that it was unhinging itself from Xiaomi as a separate brand. In its letter yesterday, it confirmed that it was on its own.
However, there are no information on any change in the after-sales service of the brand. There are no real difference in at the ground level Poco phones continue to run on Xiaomi’s Android MIUI custom skin. Xiaomi’s service center infrastructure are still being used by Poco. So some unanswered question remain about its real autonomous state.
Anyway, spelling out its success in the last two years, Poco said it has entered 35 countries across the world and had sold 6 million units of smartphones. As it happens, 2.2 million of these shipments have been of Poco F1 alone.
Poco said F1 and F2 Pro demonstrated the the company's ability to compete among flagships. With the release of the X3 NFC, Poco said, it showed its effectiveness in the mid-range segment. Now, with the release of the M3, it said it is entering a whole new segment.
Poco said it stayed firm three brand promises: Technology that matters, feedback-based product design and ever-evolving.
