Xiaomi and Leica partnership continues

Xiaomi and Leica teamed up on smartphone cameras in 2022. It seemed like a perfect marriage, with Xiaomi looking to get a piece of the premium segment, while Leica, the legendary camera maker, got into smartphone cameras. Imagine an iconic camera maker now teaming up with a smartphone manufacturer to pack all its camera prowess into a compact device, smaller than a point-and-shoot.

They pulled it off and the Xiaomi 12S Ultra was the first product under this partnership. They didn’t stop there and the partnership subsequently saw the Xiaomi Mix Fold 2, Xiaomi 13 series, Xiaomi 13 Ultra, Xiaomi Mix Fold 3, and Xiaomi 13T series. Out of all the devices mentioned, only the Xiaomi 13 Pro made it to the Indian market. This year, the duo is back with another collaboration — the Xiaomi 14 — which we recently covered in our first impressions section. Stay tuned for our in-depth review of the Xiaomi 14, which launches in India on March 7 and will be priced under Rs. 75,000. But in this story, we will talk about five major highlights of this partnership that both the brands have just touched upon.

XiaomixLeica: Is this an exclusive partnership?

Yes and no. The partnership between Xiaomi and Leica is exclusive worldwide, except for the Japanese market. Since 2020, Leica has been working with Sharp to develop premium smartphones, combining software and hardware expertise under the Leitz brand. The first smartphone launch under the Sharp-Leica partnership took place in 2021 as the Leitz Phone 1 in Japan. Both companies also launched the Leitz Phone 2 in 2022. This is the same year that Xiaomi and Leica joined forces to develop phones and put the Leica logo on Xiaomi phones. To make it short, only Xiaomi phones will carry Leica branding worldwide, except for the Japanese market, until the exclusive partnership with Xiaomi ends.

Photo: Xiaomi India and Leica executives pose for a photo in Wetzlar (Germany)

XiaomixLeica: Not Just a Marketing Partnership

A marketing gimmick! Smartphone brands collaborating with an expert brand is a great marketing tool, but it only works sometimes. We’ve seen a Chinese smartphone brand team up with another legendary camera brand. Yet, the products don’t show the finesse we expect from devices tuned by such camera expert brands, making us wonder: “Is this a marketing deal?” Well, not with the Xiaomi-Leica partnership. During a visit to Leica’s facilities in Wetzlar, Germany, both companies stressed that this is not a marketing campaign, but that it can be tested on site to see results.

XiaomixLeica: Hardware Selection

In the third year of the partnership, both brands provided the first detailed information on how closely Xiaomi and Leica work together. Kay Plaetke, Strategy & Business Development Manager Mobile at Leica, explained how the camera brand has the final say on the image quality of the new smartphone developed in collaboration with Xiaomi. In addition, both companies determine the hardware for a smartphone, which shows how integration should work exactly. The hardware selection starts with the chipset and goes all the way to the camera sensors. This ensures the highest quality.

XiaomixLeica: Dedicated teams

Kay Plaetke and Julian Burczyk, Head of Product Management Mobile at Leica, also spoke about dedicated teams working on the collaboration. Leica managers confirmed that around 25 employees from their side are working closely with the Xiaomi team on these phones.

XiaomixLeica: Coming soon to more phones

As expected, the partnership between Xiaomi and Leica is here to stay, which means we’ll be seeing more phones with Leica branding. Leica executives talked about how this partnership has helped bring the prices under the $1,000 (roughly Rs. 83,000) mark, which wasn’t possible earlier. We’ve been using the Xiaomi 13 Pro and the Xiaomi 14 (read our first impressions here ), both of which have excellent cameras, making the whole package seem worth it.

Disclosure: Xiaomi sponsored flights for the writer to Wetzlar (Germany) and the Mobile World Congress 2024.

Is the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 the best foldable phone you can buy in India right now? We review the company’s new clamshell-style foldable handset in the latest episode of Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Goana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts from.