Xiaomi Mi 4 India Launch Set for January 28

At the sidelines of the Beijing event, Xiaomi's Vice President of International Operations, Hugo Barra, announced an event in New Delhi on January 28, which ties in with India Head Manu Kumar Jain's statement that the Xiaomi Mi 4 would launch by the end of the month.

Considering that Xiaomi follows a customary Tuesday flash sale for its handsets in India, it is possible the Mi 4 will go on sale for the first time on February 3 via Flipkart.

For the uninitiated, Xiaomi is no longer selling its former flagship in India, the Mi 3. The launch of the Xiaomi Mi 4 certainly fits in with the company's strategy as it needs a flagship in its India portfolio to make up.

Notably, Xiaomi India Head Manu Kumar Jain had on Thursday revealed that the Mi 4 will be launching in India by the end of this month. Jain however did not specify a release date nor pricing information for the handset. Jain had also confirmed that Xiaomi's first R&D (Research and Development) centre in Bengaluru would be ready by April this year. He claimed that the centre is spread over 20,000 square feet.

On being asked about the Xiaomi Mi Note launch in India, Jain declined to reveal a time frame, and only said, "India is a priority market and the launch is definitely in the pipeline".

Currently the Chinese company, amidst the legal challenges it faced over patent issues in India, is selling the Redmi 1S and Redmi Note 4G via Flipkart, the exclusive online partner of the brand in the country. Unlike the Redmi 1S or Mi 3, the Redmi Note 4G is also available via Airtel.

Last month, Xiaomi announced that it crossed a major milestone in India - as it managed to sell 1 million smartphones in the country since its entry in July.

To recall, the Mi 4 is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor clocked at 2.5GHz alongside 3GB of RAM. The smartphone comes in two storage variants, 16GB and 64GB. It features a 5-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) JDI OGS full lamination display. There is a 13-megapixel rear camera and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera on the Xiaomi Mi 4, with both sporting Sony's stacked CMOS sensors. The smartphone is backed by a 3080mAh Li-ion battery.

On Thursday, Xiaomi at its first major event of 2015 had a number of surprises up its sleeves including the Mi Note phablet and the "even-better" Mi Note Pro alongside the Mi Headphones and Mi Box Mini. Unfortunately, none of these new Xiaomi devices will reach Indian shores any time soon.