Xiaomi and Leica Camera Announce Long-Term Strategic Cooperation
Xiaomi, a leading consumer electronics and smart manufacturing company based in China, and Leica Camera, a German producer of cameras and optical lenses, officially announced a strategic cooperation for mobile imaging on Monday. The first imaging flagship smartphone jointly developed by the two companies will reportedly be officially launched in July this year.
Founded in 2010, Xiaomi is currently the world’s third-largest smartphone manufacturer. Its smartphones and other products are sold in more than 100 countries and regions around the world. In the field of imaging, based on its long-term technical accumulation in lens optics, chips, algorithms, and more, Xiaomi provides extraordinary photography experiences including portraits, night scenes, and snapshots.
For over 100 years, Leica Camera has been creating lightweight cameras favored by street photographer pioneers and optical lenses. With ingenious optical engineering, Leica cameras, recognizable by their “red dot” branding, continue to attract new generations of consumers who aspire to achieve “the Leica image look” and own these masterpieces of design.
Leica has also cooperated with Huawei, another Chinese tech giant, in the field of smartphone cameras. The two sides first worked together in 2016 for the P9 series and then the Mate 9 family. The partnership saw the two companies working on general image tuning, user-selectable color modes, portraits, and more. However, a Huawei representative told Android Authority in response to an emailed query on Monday, “We can confirm that the cooperation between our two companies ended on 31 March.” In other words, the Huawei P50 series models which launched globally earlier this year were the last Leica-branded Huawei phones.
Xiaomi and Leica share the same ideas regarding mobile imaging. Both companies are eager to explore the optical performance and photographic experience in the mobile imaging era through technological breakthroughs.
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“During the cooperation, from optical design to tuning aesthetic orientations, the innovative technologies, product philosophies and imaging preferences of both parties have experienced in-depth collision and fusion,” said Lei Jun, the founder, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi.
