POCO confirms 'true successor' to POCO F1, addresses rebranding

The POCO F2 Pro is one of the best affordable flagships in 2020, coming as a rebranded version of the China-only Redmi K30 Pro. Nevertheless, we thought it made all the right compromises for the price.

Still, the $500 price means that the POCO F2 Pro is significantly more expensive than the ~$300 POCO F1 launched back in 2018. Now, POCO country director Anuj Sharma has confirmed to The Indian Express that the POCO F2 Pro isn’t coming to India.

Furthermore, the POCO exec said a real successor to the POCO F1 is indeed coming:

The POCO F1 was a device that changed the market and consumers expect the same from the successor. The POCO F2 Pro isn’t that device. We are working to bring a true successor to the POCO F1 but it will take time for us to develop it.

The quote suggests that we could see a POCO F1 successor with a similarly disruptive price as the original POCOphone. But pricing could be a bigger challenge than ever before, as we’ve seen a big jump in flagship phone pricing in 2020. This is mainly attributed to the high cost of 5G and the price of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 silicon. We’ve also seen the rise of multi-camera setups, adding up to even more dollars on the bill of materials.

In saying so, it’s theoretically possible that a full-blown POCO F1 successor could launch in 2021, when 5G costs are expected to come down somewhat. We’re also not expecting a big price hike for the upcoming Snapdragon 875, while some leaks point to the existence of a lite version of the flagship chipset. Companies like Google and Apple have also delivered value for money devices with a single rear camera, showing that a triple or quad camera phone isn’t essential.

Addressing the rebranding strategy

Sharma also reportedly addressed criticism of POCO’s rebranding strategy, as most of its phones released in 2020 were rebadged Redmi phones with the POCO launcher. The executive felt that these rebranded phones were better versions of their Redmi counterparts and offered better value. He also noted that POCO is a new brand and that creating all-new phones for every segment was therefore a tough challenge.

“The first OnePlus phone – OnePlus One – was a rebranded OPPO device and similar was the case with realme’s first phone (sic). Brands often tend to follow this strategy and this isn’t anything new in POCO’s case,” Sharma was quoted as saying.

In fact, the POCO country director told The Indian Express that it would continue to follow this strategy in the future and that it had no plans to develop its own software platform in lieu of MIUI.

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