Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra: Price, Features, Specifications, Availability

GUANGZHOU, China – Xiaomi launched a slew of new smartphones on Monday, with a high-end device aimed at international markets as it seeks to enter the premium segment and fill the void left by the woes of rival Huawei.

The devices are:

• Mi 11 Lite and Mi 11 Lite 5G
• Wed 11 Dec
• Mi 11 Ultra

The Mi 11 Ultra is the smartphone for the international premium segment markets. It will start at 5,999 yuan ($ 914) and climb to 6,999 yuan ($ 1,066) for a higher performance version. Xiaomi has not yet specified in which markets it will be available outside of China.

With the Mi 11 Ultra, Xiaomi enters into fierce competition with leaders Samsung and Apple, but also with Chinese rivals like Oppo and Vivo, which have sought to strengthen their high-end credentials and expand into more mature markets such as Europe in recent years.

“At the start of last year, we started moving towards the high-end market,” Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said at a launch event on Monday. “I think we have found a foothold in the high end market.”

The CEO has spent a lot of time talking about the Mi 11 Ultra’s camera which has three sensors. The camera takes up a lot of the space on the back of the phone. Lei spoke about low-light photography and zooming as well as the algorithm behind the camera.

Other features include:

• 6.81-inch screen
• 5G connectivity
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset inside

“These days the camera makes the phone. Xiaomi knows that and has done everything possible with the Ultra,” Bryan Ma, vice president of client device research at IDC, told CNBC.

“Xiaomi may be beating her chest after tonight’s launch, but the competition from her rivals is so intense that she cannot sit comfortably for long.”

Xiaomi is likely hoping to take advantage of some of Huawei’s woes in the smartphone market resulting from US sanctions against the telecom equipment giant.

In 2019, Huawei was put on a U.S. blacklist known as the Entity List, which blocked U.S. companies from exporting technology to the Chinese company. Google had to sever ties with Huawei, which meant the Chinese company couldn’t use the Android operating system on its devices. This is not a big deal in China where Google services like Gmail and search are blocked. But abroad, consumers are used to using such applications.

And Washington also decided to cut Huawei off of the chips it needed for its smartphones.

The United States maintains that Huawei is a threat to national security, a claim the Chinese company has repeatedly denied.

Xiaomi has also faced intense scrutiny from the United States. The administration of former President Donald Trump designated Xiaomi as “Communist Chinese Military Enterprises” or CCMC. This has prevented US investors from buying shares or related securities of Xiaomi. But a judge temporarily blocked that decision after Xiaomi filed a lawsuit against the United States. Xiaomi said at the time that he was “not detained, controlled or affiliated with the Chinese military”.

Huawei saw its global shipments drop 41% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, according to Counterpoint Research. In Europe alone, shipments fell 62%.

Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo all saw double-digit growth in smartphone shipments in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to Canalys. Xiaomi was the third largest smartphone maker in terms of market share during the same period.

But Xiaomi may not be the best placed in the premium segment compared to some of its rivals, said Neil Shah, research director at Counterpoint Research.

“Xiaomi is doing well in filling the vacuum left by Huawei in the low and middle segments, especially in Europe and Latin America.” Shah said. “The high-end segment is always up for grabs. While Samsung and Apple are very well positioned to capture these volumes, among Chinese brands OnePlus and Oppo should be better beneficiaries.”

Shah said Xiaomi’s Chinese rivals have stepped up their overseas marketing and distribution investments.