Xiaomi Mi 4 to Launch in India This Month: Manu Kumar Jain

Xiaomi's 2014 flagship smartphone, the Mi 4, will be launching in India by the end of this month. The news was confirmed to NDTV Gadgets by Xiaomi India Head Manu Kumar Jain at the sidelines of the Beijing event. Unfortunately, no specific release date or pricing information was revealed.

Jain also revealed that Xiaomi's first R&D (Research and Development) centre in Bengaluru will 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".

Considering that 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.

(Also see: After Big Sales and Some Scares in Debut Year, Manu Jain on Xiaomi India's 2015 Plans)

Late last year, Hugo Barra, Xiaomi's Vice President of International Operations, had tipped that the Xiaomi Mi 4 might launch in late December 2014 or early January 2015. However, that didn't happen.

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.

Earlier 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 rather lesser important Mi Headphones and Mi Box Mini. Unfortunately, none of these new Xiaomi devices will reach Indian shores any time soon.