What’s your guess?

When Xiaomi started business in the PH in the middle of this year, the company promised to bring four of its mobile products over to the PH: the Mi3, Redmi 1S, the Redmi Note and the Mi Pad. A few months later, only two of those devices have officially been offered here: the Mi3 and the Redmi 1S. It’s about time that the company announce the next phone that’s going to be sold here, and the rumor mill is rife with possible candidates which include’s Xiaomi’s recently launched Mi4.

Well, your guess is as good as ours, but there’s a couple of things that you’ll have to consider when it comes to Xiaomi’s release. While the company has said that it’s shooting for a near simultaneous release for products offered in China and international markets, that’s simply not what’s happening now. So far Xiaomi has followed a logical launch plan for its devices in the PH modeled after the one in Malaysia. In Malaysia (which Xiaomi entered a few months before the PH) they sold the Mi3 first, then the Mi Powerbanks, then the Redmi 1S and the Redmi Note, followed by the Redmi Note 4G that’s arriving in December. Our guess is that we’ll be seeing either the Redmi Note or the Redmi Note 4G in the next few weeks, and not the Mi Pad or the Mi4 for a couple of reasons.

It stands to reason that other, more developed markets like Singapore and Malaysia would get first dibs on new products before it’s announced in the PH. Unfortunately neither the Mi Pad or the Mi4 has been offered in these markets as of yet, so unless Xiaomi pulls a fast one (not likely) you won’t be seeing them in the PH this year. Rumor has it that the Mi4 is rarer than hen’s teeth in China because of high demand, so until Xiaomi manages to stabilize supply, we’re not going to be seeing it locally anytime soon.

Of course, we’re more than happy to be proven wrong as that means we’ll be able to buy them off of Lazada just like everybody else :).