Exactly one year from the launch of the Mi 11, Xiaomi is set to launch the successor on December 28th, the company has announced via its official Weibo account. The new lineup will be called the Xiaomi 12 series, following the company’s decision to phase out its Mi branding earlier this year. A teaser poster features Chinese sprinter Su Bingtian, which sets the expectation that the event is likely to be focused on the Chinese market before the Xiaomi flagships make their way to global markets in 2022.
Xiaomi’s 12 series lineup could include as many as four different devices, according to Gadgets 360. These include the Xiaomi 12, the 12 Pro, the 12X, and the 12 Ultra, although it’s possible that not all of them will be announced during the December event (this year’s Mi 11 Ultra wasn’t announced until late March, for example). Gizmochina reports that Xiaomi executives have been spotted using the other three phones to post to their Weibo accounts.
Xiaomi 12 and 12 Pro coming pic.twitter.com/HRCYuamab9— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) December 21, 2021
There aren’t many official details about the upcoming handsets, but Xiaomi has confirmed that they’ll be powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. Apparent marketing images of the Xiaomi 12 and 12 Pro shared by leaker @UniverseIce on Twitter show the phones will feature centrally orientated hole-punch cameras. Other rumored specs of the Xiaomi 12 include a triple rear camera, according to leaked renders from @OnLeaks, with a 50-megapixel primary sensor.
Although Xiaomi’s phones don’t have much of a presence in the US, it’s ranked as the second biggest smartphone manufacturer in Europe and the second biggest Android manufacturer in the world behind Samsung. Demand is driven by phones like the Xiaomi Mi 11 which offers comparable specs to Samsung’s flagships at much more affordable prices.
The Xiaomi Mi 11 launched globally in February this year, which hopefully means that the international version of the Xiaomi 12 will arrive soon after the December event.