Xiaomi has become one of the biggest players in the smartphone space over the past few years. Despite its lack of presence in the US, the company has seen immense growth, especially in emerging markets, thanks to its relative affordability and high price-to-performance ratio compared to some of its competitors. While Xiaomi operates several sub-brands, including Redmi and POCO, the manufacturer’s main lineup of flagship and sub-flagship smartphones has generally arrived using the “Mi” moniker. Well, no more: Xiaomi won’t “Mi” using that name any longer.
A spokesperson for Xiaomi confirmed to XDA-Developers that the Mi branding is being retired from this point on. The shift includes not only smartphones, but also some of its other products in the computing, smart home, and lifestyle spaces. The Mi branding is dead, and it will be replaced by just “Xiaomi.”
To be honest, we should have seen this one coming. Xiaomi recently introduced its latest entry in the Mix series, the Xiaomi Mix 4, the successor to the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3. See the difference? It’s not “Mi Mix” anymore, but just “Mix.” This tweaked branding will apply to all future Xiaomi products, as well. The change isn’t expected to affect the current naming scheme for either the Redmi or POCO lineups.
In China, the Xiaomi Mi 11 is called the “小米 11,” or the Xiaomi 11.
The reason? Well, for one, the Xiaomi name has become huge globally, so the company probably wants to associate its phones with the increasingly prestigious company. In China a lot of its smartphones are just listed as “Xiaomi” (or more specifically, “小米,” which is Xiaomi written in Chinese) instead of “Xiaomi Mi” or “Mi,” so this change would bring global branding more in line with that.
From now on, don’t expect to see the Mi branding again on any new Xiaomi products. This won’t help resolve the other issues with the company’s horrible smartphone naming scheme, but at least it’s a start.
