Xiaomi, the world’s most valuable tech startup, is celebrating its fifth birthday next month. And what better way to do it than to announce a new Xiaomi product…or even products?
The Chinese company has announced a “Mi Fans Festival” event in Beijing on 31 March, where CEO Lei Jun will reveal its latest products. This year’s event will likely see several products announced that day, with rumours already flying about as to what exactly will be announced.
One product that will almost likely be announced is the new smartphone codenamed “Ferrari”. Judging from a recent benchmark result listed on GFXBench, the “Ferrari” is definitely not a flagship smartphone, bearing mid-range specs such as a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 1.6GHz octa-core chipset with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage with 12MP and 5MP front and rear cameras. One interesting aspect is the 4.9-inch Full HD display, which is still rare among mid-range devices today.
Another product that may be announced on 31 March is the new Lollipop update for MIUI 6. It has been mentioned in passing by Hugo Barra several times now, first back in November last year with a end-Q1 timeline for the rollout, before a more modest estimate of “the first half of 2015” for a full migration to Lollipop. Next week’s announcement will likely reveal a more concrete timeline on this rollout.
Finally, there’s the most far-fetched rumour that Xiaomi will be releasing its own smartwatch, which may be called the Mi Watch. With almost no hint that Xiaomi is working on a smartwatch, this may not even prove to be true. That being said, Android Central reports that the Mi Watch will have a brushed metal design, a round watch face, and “the ability to monitor blood pressure via pulse wave velocity recognition”.
What’s more certain is the fact that there will be a mega Xiaomi sale after the event. In 2014, Xiaomi held a 12-hour flash sale that yielded a spectacular 1.5 billion Yuan (over RM885 million) in revenue for the company. With a lot more foreign markets today than it has had in 2014, there is a chance this flash sale may extend to Xiaomi’s international markets as well – though at a much lower scale.
Regardless, Xiaomi’s 2015 is proving to be as relentless as it promised it will be, with new product launches being announced almost every month. Just yesterday, the company announced the new 40-inch Mi TV 2, while the affordable Redmi 2 was announced in Malaysia a few weeks back.
(Source: MIUI Forums)
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