Towards the end of 2020, the Xiaomi Mi 11 was unveiled as the first smartphone to be powered by the Snapdragon 888 chipset, officially kicking off the next flagship season. A new development already confirms that it will be headed to India in the future.
In an interaction with The Indian Express, Sumit Sonal, the brand’s Marketing Lead, confirmed that they are working on bringing the Xiaomi Mi 11 to India: “With Mi 11, we are still contemplating the SKUs (stock keeping unit) we want to bring to the country. Perhaps by the end of January, we will finalise the entire lineup.”
The usage of the term “lineup” could imply that there are other devices in the series. We’re already hearing rumours of a Mi 11 Pro and a Mi 11 Lite, but neither has been officially confirmed or even teased yet. Right after the Chinese launch, Xiaomi did tweet a teaser stating that “the Mi 11 series global launch is about to happen”, corroborating our belief that the availability in other markets might not be too far and there will be more than one smartphone.
Testing the spotlights right now. The #Mi11Series global launch is about to happen.Stay tuned for more details! #InnovationForEveryone pic.twitter.com/e5WMAheJjKDecember 28, 2020
He also mentioned how they’d prefer to have the global launch closer to the local unveiling to sustain the excitement and stay ahead of the competition. This was supposed to happen with the Mi 10, but the lockdown pushed it back. We did see that being addressed with the Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro — with the Chinese, global and Indian launches being less than a month apart.
Lastly, the conversation also touched upon Xiaomi’s struggle in establishing itself as a premium smartphone brand in India, and how they plan on changing it. “You will not spend Rs 35-40,000 on a product which you do not love as a brand. But with good products and marketing, we plan to change that. Perception changing is a long game. It will take time, a lot of investment and the right people to actually focus on that,” he added.
Considering that the Mi 10T series came to India only in October, while the Xiaomi Mi 10i launched in January, we might be looking at one of the shortest product refresh cycles if the Mi 11 is unveiled any time soon.
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