Xiaomi launches MiA1 Smartphone in Spain; expands overseas

The Chinese smartphone maker, Xiaomi launched MiA1 Smartphone on Tuesday during a grand launch event in Madrid, Spain. This is the first time that Xiaomi had gone for a phone set release in Europe as it revs up a global push into other developed markets around Europe and the United States. Xiaomi will initially sell MiA1 smartphones, priced at 229 euros ($265.85) in Spain from Wednesday. The Xiaomi Mi A1 was launched as the new face of Google’s Android One platform.

The company also plans to sell other internet-connected products including scooters, air purifiers and coffee makers. “It’s proof we are very, very serious to be a global company, not only a Chinese company and not only working in developing countries,” Wang Xiang, head of Xiaomi’s global business, told Reuters before the launch.

Wang Xiang took to Twitter to promote the new smartphone.

Xiaomi MiA1 is a new flagship phone largely focused on emerging markets with the tagline of “created by Xiaomi, powered by Google.” It has a 5.5-inch 1080p screen, a metal body, and a dual-camera system that includes a secondary telephoto lens for 2x zooming and portraits with shallow depth of field. MiA1 combines 12MP wideangle lens and 12MP telephoto lens. MiA1 also has Qualcomm’s increasingly ubiquitous Snapdragon 625 processor — which we’ve found to strike a great balance between performance and battery life — and a fairly standard 3080mAh battery. The phone charges over USB-C, unlike Xiaomi’s more budget-orientated offerings, and the company is even including a custom 380V charger that it says is designed to handle India’s frequent power spikes.