The Xiaomi ‘Mi’ branding is ending, just Xiaomi now
TL; DR
- Xiaomi has confirmed that the Xiaomi branding “Mi” will be discontinued.
- Instead, only “Xiaomi” is used for the naming scheme. That means we should see a “Xiaomi 12” instead of a “Xiaomi Mi 12”.
- The company has already removed Mi from many of its products in China, so this is likely to have something to do with brand synergies.
Only a few weeks ago, Xiaomi launched a new Mix smartphone: the Xiaomi Mix 4. That was interesting news because the usual “Mi” branding did not appear. Well, according to a statement XDA developer, this will be the future.
Assuming Xiaomi sticks to this new structure for the long term, it means that we won’t see the expected launch of the Xiaomi Mi 12 later this year (or early 2022). Instead, we see a Xiaomi 12 (along with several riffs on that name for various related products).
See also: This is how much confidence you have in Xiaomi that it is ahead of Samsung
This represents a big shift as the company has been using Mi since its very first smartphone, the Mi 1. The branding also carried over to non-smartphone products, including tablets, wearables, laptops, and more.
To be clear, Xiaomi does not change any existing products. The Mi 11 smartphone, for example, remains the Mi 11. This change only applies to future products.
Corresponding XDA, Xiaomi already has several products in its native China that lack Mi branding. It is likely that this change will bring some brand synergies around the world for its global products.
Lei Jun, the co-founder of Xiaomi, once commented that “Mi” stands for two things: “Mobile Internet” and “Mission impossible”. The former refers to the company’s product orientation, while the latter refers to the company’s ambitions.
