What you need to know
- Xiaomi is launching its latest flagship in India later this week.
- The Mi 10 will be debuting in a livestream on May 8.
- The news comes on the back of Xiaomi stating that it is restarting retail operations across most of India.
Xiaomi's last premium phone in India was the Mi Mix 2, which debuted in the region in October 2017. The phone didn't sell particularly well, and in recent years Xiaomi has focused its attention solely on the entry-level and budget segments.
After divesting Redmi into a standalone entity and doing the same with POCO a few months ago, Xiaomi is now turning its attention once again to the high-end category. The Redmi K20 series showed that there's a lot of potential in this segment, and now Xiaomi has announced that it is bringing the Mi 10 to India.
Xiaomi will launch the Mi 10 in a virtual event on May 8. This is a big deal for the brand because the Mi 10 is the first true flagship Xiaomi is bringing to India in over two years. The high-end category has matured in that time, with OnePlus in particular coming out as the winner, managing to beat out Samsung.
The Mi 10 obviously invites comparisons to the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro because both phones have similar hardware: they're powered by the Snapdragon 865 chipset, feature high refresh rate panels, LPDDR5 RAM, and large batteries with 30W wired and wireless charging.
Then there's the fact that the OnePlus 8 series starts off at just ₹41,999 ($550) in India, which is $150 less than what the phones cost in the U.S. and other markets. This is what Xiaomi is going up against with the Mi 10.
We'll have to wait until May 8 to find out how much the Mi 10 will cost in India. Then there's the issue of availability; with the country in protracted lockdown, there's no telling how Xiaomi will deliver the phone to customers. Xiaomi has stated that it is restarting operations — including its Mi retail stores — in green and orange zones in parts of the country. Tune in on Friday to know more about the Mi 10 series in India.
