Xiaomi first unveiled the Poco brand as one of its sub-brands to meet the demands of young smartphone users. The Poco F1 was launched as the first and so far, the only model under the brand. A couple of days back, Xiaomi announced that Poco has become an independent brand without going into details of what that entails.
In a recent interview with Gadgets 360, Poco India General Manager C Manmohan gave an insight into the vision of the new independent brand. He emphasized that the split between Poco India and Xiaomi wouldn’t affect Poco’s existing philosophy which is summarized in the brand’s slogan – “everything you need, nothing you don’t”. The brand hopes to achieve that by strongly considering consumer feedback and ongoing market trends
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He also disclosed that Poco plans to get its own office building different from Xiaomi and should operate as a separate entity. In addition, he stated that “Poco will get a product team of its own, a sales team of its own, and a marketing team of its own.” But for now, Poco will continue to utilise the established presence of Xiaomi. It will also continue to store user data at Xiaomi’s data centres and offer after-sales services through the latter’s channels.
One of the key features that made the Poco F1 a Xiaomi phone was the presence of a tweaked MIUI version that the brand called “MIUI for Poco”. Manmonhan told Gadgets 360 that MIUI for Poco will continue to be a part of Poco phones.
“Some of my Poco fans say that it is much more stock Android-ish,” he said. “So essentially, we are kind of, leveraging that and with our Poco fans feedback and the community feedback, we’ll work towards making it much more better and better. So, that’s the plan right now.”
The users who already own a Poco F1 aren’t likely to see any changes through the spin-off. Manmohan also stated that the company would continue to provide the same support to its existing Poco F1 consumers that they were promised. The company may also replicate the marketing strategy of Xiaomi and establish a community of Poco fans – just like how you can see Mi fans at any of Mi or Redmi launch.
“That’s the idea because in all honesty, if today, Poco has come to this stage, it’s because of the community,” Manmohan said while answering the question of how Poco is set to establish its fans. “The amount of support/ feedback we got from them is just enormous. That’s exactly why we are here today and we will continue to nurture it.”
At the initial stage, Poco is aiming to cater to the online space, though it is open to establishing offline channels over time. Manmohan revealed that the company wouldn’t sell its future devices through Xiaomi-exclusive Mi Home stores, though.
“Channel strategy will keep evolving. It’s not something which we can kind of take a call on today and tomorrow we can provide. So it depends on the kind of product we launch, and so on so forth. So we will take a call as and when we launch the products and depends on what our customers are asking,” he added.
The Poco GM also disclosed during the interview that it will continue its philosophy of launching value-for-money smartphones despite not knowing the price segments in which it will launch its new devices. This clearly means that the company would cannibalise the sales of some Redmi phones. The Poco X2 is touted to be a rebranded Redmi K30 and may drop soon. Poco is also expected to launch the Poco F2, news of which seems to have sent the Indian tech pace into a frenzy.
Manmohan didn’t clearly specify whether the next phone will be the Poco F2 or something completely different. Nonetheless, he did mention that it would essentially be the successor to the Poco F1. He also didn’t completely refute the reports suggesting there are multiple Poco phones in the works, though he suggested that there would initially be one model to begin the new era.
When asked if Poco has plans to expand its range and bring some Poco devices to affordable segments, he said, “That’s also something which we are kind of evaluating. In due course of time, we will share that.”
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