Xiaomi makes Poco an independent brand: 5 key things you need to know

Poco F1 is one of the most popular mid-range phones and also the longest running one. Xiaomi's sub-brand Poco launched its first smartphone in 2018 but the company has since been hushed about a second Poco. With rumours of Poco F2 suddenly crowding the internet, Xiaomi announced Poco will now function as an independent brand.

The timing of this news is quite interesting since rumours of Poco X2 have been doing the rounds. This would be the second Poco smartphone. But Poco functioning as an independent brand also raises many questions as well. We take a look at five key things about Poco's new business move.

What this means for Poco

Poco was previously a sub-brand of Xiaomi. While the company did have its own team, it worked under Xiaomi. Although being an independent doesn't mean its cut off ties with Xiaomi. It only gives full independence to Poco as a brand.

Separate market strategy

Xiaomi has so far confirmed that Poco will be working with its own team and have its own marketing strategy. This would mean that the Poco team will decide on its own launches and events irrespective of Xiaomi's plans.

Poco to work like Realme?

Poco, like Realme, is now an independent brand. But Realme still uses Oppo's resource which is why phones from both the brands look and function similarly. Xiaomi has however not clarified whether this would be the same case for Poco.

Rumours of Poco shutdown

Poco was last year rumoured to be shutting down with no news of a second phone and top executives leaving the company. Donovan Sung, who was the global spokesperson of Poco quit the company last July to join Google Pay in Singapore. Around the same time, Jai Mani, head of product of Poco also called it quits. This added to the speculation that Poco might be shutting down its operations.

New Poco phone

Xiaomi's announcement of Poco becoming an independent brand comes right around the time we've been hearing of a new Poco phone. Dubbed 'Poco X2', this smartphone was recently spotted on Geekbench with Android 10 and 8GB of RAM. It was also listed with a Qualcomm octa-core processor. There are also speculations that the Poco X2 could be a rebranded version of the Redmi K30.