Xiaomi 13S may not be released this year, CEO Lei Jun confirms
Xiaomi 13S — the rumoured successor to the Xiaomi 12S — won’t be launching anytime soon by the company, the company’s founder and CEO Lei Jun has confirmed. The Xiaomi 12S was launched in July last year as a mid-year upgrade to the Xiaomi 12 series. A couple of months ago, the company launched the Xiaomi 13 series in China and now the company is all set to make its global debut at MWC 2023 in Barcelona. The Chinese variant of the phone will be powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC and features Leica-branded cameras on the rear. It comprises two models — the vanilla Xiaomi 13 and a high-end Xiaomi 13 Pro.
Lei Jun, founder and CEO of Xiaomi, took to Chinese microblogging site Weibo to to confirm that the company is not planning any half-generation upgrades of the Xiaomi 13 series for the time being. This means that it will be a long time before we know if the company will launch its Xiaomi 13S. For now, CEO Jun has squashed all rumors about the development of the Xiaomi 13S.
The announcement comes ahead of the global launch of the Xiaomi 13 series at MWC 2023 in Barcelona, which is scheduled for February 27. The series has already launched in the Chinese market in December 2022.
The Xiaomi 13 series in China has two models – the base variant Xiaomi 13) and a high-end variant Xiaomi 13 Pro. While the features and specifications of the Xiaomi 13 series in China are already known, the global variant has also appeared on a European retailer site, featuring the pricing, specifications, and color options of both smartphones.
Although the listing was later removed from the website, it suggested that the Xiaomi 13 will be priced at EUR 999.90 (approximately Rs. 88,300) for the 8GB RAM + 256GB storage variant, while the Xiaomi 13 Pro will be priced at EUR 1,299.90 (approximately Rs. 1,14,700). Both the smartphones will be available in Black and White color options.
The Xiaomi 13 and Xiaomi 13 Pro are speculated to come with similar specs for their global debut as their Chinese variants. The vanilla variant in the series runs on MIUI 14 and features a 6.73-inch 2K OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC paired with up to 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM.
