- Xiaomi has confirmed that it is sunsetting the Xiaomi “Mi” branding.
- Instead, it will just use “Xiaomi” for its naming scheme. This means we should see a “Xiaomi 12” instead of “Xiaomi Mi 12.”
- The company already dropped Mi from a lot of its products in China, so this is likely to do with brand synergy.
Just a few weeks ago, Xiaomi launched a new Mix smartphone: the Xiaomi Mix 4. This was interesting news because the usual “Mi” branding didn’t appear. Now, according to a statement issued to XDA-Developers, this will be the future going forward.
Assuming Xiaomi sticks to this new structure for the long term, this means we won’t see the expected Xiaomi Mi 12 launch later this year (or in early 2022). Instead, we’ll see a Xiaomi 12 (along with multiple riffs on that name for different related products).
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This represents a huge shift, as the company has used Mi since its very first smartphone, the Mi 1. The branding also carried to non-smartphone products, including tablets, wearables, laptops, and more.
To be clear, Xiaomi is not changing anything about existing products. The Mi 11 smartphone, for example, will continue to be the Mi 11. This change only applies to upcoming products.
According to XDA, Xiaomi already has several products in its native China that lack a Mi branding. It’s likely this change for its global products is to bring some brand synergy across the world.
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 focus while the latter refers to the company’s ambitions.