Xiaomi has announced that its Redmi brand will now be ‘independent’ from the company’s existing smartphone portfolio. The Chinese company made the revelation via a Weibo post that also teases the launch of the first Redmi smartphone with a 48-megapixel camera after the separation. The launch of the smartphone is set for January 10, right when the CES 2019 will be underway.
The Redmi sub-brand is similar to Poco (or Pocophone) that operates independently, however, within the same company now acting as a parent. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said in a Weibo post that the reason behind the move is the extent of the Redmi brand is more suited for the price versus performance proposition while being e-commerce friendly at the same time. Xiaomi’s Mi brand is more focused on the high-end phones that are targeted at the retail stores, meaning offline sales.
In his post, Jun also revealed some information on the upcoming Redmi smartphone. Apart from the launch date, the poster shared by Jun shows that smartphone to bear a 48-megapixel rear camera. What’s interesting in the poster is the new logo for the newly-separated Redmi sub-brand, which is going to be inscribed on all the Redmi phones onwards. It is also being touted as a flagship-grade smartphone, going by the camera specifications. The smartphone is also likely to be made available only via online channels in China. Its India launch details are not known as of now.
Presently unnamed, the upcoming Redmi smartphone will be Xiaomi’s first 48-megapixel camera phone. While the name of the device is still a mystery, it is speculated that it will be called Redmi 7 or Redmi Pro 2. Some reports even say that it will be called Redmi 7 Pro and there will be another, toned-down model Redmi 7. It is said to be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor. While the 48-megapixel camera will be the rear, the smartphone’s front camera is likely to be packed inside a punch-hole setup. If this turns out to be the actual case, the Redmi smartphone will be the fourth phone with a punch-hole camera setup after Honor V20 (View 20), Huawei Nova 4, and Samsung Galaxy A8s launched last year.
