Just as the reports are confirmed, Xiaomi is, in fact, joining hands with German camera company Leica. The Chinese phone company has just announced the strategic partnership through a teaser poster.
In July of this year, the first jointly developed flagship phone with Leica-powered cameras will be released. We can expect the device in question to be the Xiaomi 12 Ultra, as the rumor mill correctly predicted Xiaomi’s partnership with Leica, but we will have to wait for official confirmation.
This is far from Leica’s first collaboration with a smartphone company. The German company’s most popular collaboration was with Huawei, but since that was dethroned by the US ban, it’s understandable that Leica wants to branch out.
Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi, stated: – “Xiaomi focuses on creating the ultimate user experience and has always hoped to explore the capabilities of smartphone photography to the extreme. Xiaomi and Leica agree with each other’s pursuits and ideas and our cooperation involves optical design as well as tuning aesthetic orientations”.
Only time will tell how much the collaboration will affect Xiaomi phones. On their phones, some companies simply use the partner’s brand name and a few camera filters, while others use co-developed hardware and software. Huawei used to do the latter with Leica, and it will be interesting to see how Xiaomi approaches the collaboration.
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