Until the arrival of the Xiaomi Mi 10 and Redmi K20 in India, Poco was the only "flagship" segment of the Chinese smartphone maker.
Even though it wasn't a flagship, people took it as one thanks to Poco providing premium specs at a budget price. It was a time when Poco F1 sales were exploding. It topped OnePlus 6 sales, which is no small feat, as OnePlus has always stood out as offering high-end devices at a nominal price.
Looking at how successful Poco F1 has been, Poco has done two big things this year. First, it distanced itself from Xiaomi and became a standalone brand. Second, it launched three new smartphones, including Poco X2, Poco M2 Pro and Poco F2 Pro, of which only the first two are available in India.
Consumers, aware of the performance of the Poco F1, quickly bought the new Poco devices. Poco says it sold around 146,000 Poco X2 devices on Flipkart alone as of June 2020.
"Everything you need, nothing you don't.
This is Poco's brand message. This means offering the features that are most important to users and ditching non-essential features, thereby reducing the price of the device. Poco says he interacts with users to find out what they really want. Surprisingly, OS updates fall outside of Poco's core functionality.
I don't know about others, but software updates are a huge factor for me when buying a smartphone, and it seems Poco fails miserably at that. At the moment, none of the Poco devices have received the final stable updates of MIUI 12.
Since Xiaomi hosted the global launch of MIUI 12 in May, it has updated almost all of its high-end smartphones such as Mi 9 and Redmi K20 / K20 Pro. Additionally, it has started beta testing of MIUI 12 on Redmi Note 8 Pro and Mi 10. What puzzles me is that Xiaomi blatantly ignores Poco devices, knowing that Poco is one of their brands. most sold, especially in the Indian market.
I still remember the hype surrounding the release of Poco X2, given that it was the first Poco device after a hiatus of almost two years. Sadly, all the excitement has been replaced with desperation for the new MIUI update. The biggest irony of all is Poco CEO C Manmohan told the Launch of the Poco M2 Pro event that Poco X2 will receive the update to Android 11.
Following that, he returned to the monologue about how Poco truly believes in the "All you need, nothing you don't" philosophy. For the record, Poco M2 Pro also did not receive the MIUI 12 update. This is not even mentioned in the official MIUI 12 rollout schedule.
MIUI 12 updates for Poco device status quo
There is some light at the end of the tunnel for Poco F2 Pro users as the MIUI 12 version of the device is in beta testing. However, it will be a few weeks before the MIUI 12 Stable update begins to reach Poco F2 Pro owners.
Meanwhile, Xiaomi is keeping a low profile on the MIUI 12 update for other Poco devices. The Chinese manufacturer launched MIUI 12 Pilot tests on Poco F1 a few days ago; however, no beta update has been released so far.
By launching three smartphones in one year, Poco has made it clear that it is here to stay in the smartphone market for a long time. However, if it continues to ignore the voices of its users and what they "really need", the company risks ending up being eclipsed by Xiaomi.