"I don’t believe what we have done is entirely fair," comments Anuj Sharma, the Chief Marketing Officer of Xiaomi India, as he unwraps a candy and pops it into his mouth. "It feels like we've brought a gun to a knife fight with this one," Sharma added with a broad smile, referring to the newly launched Xiaomi 14 Civi, which the company introduced to the Indian market on Wednesday. This model marks the debut of the Civi-series smartphones in India and has a starting price of Rs 42,999. It is also noteworthy for being the most affordable Xiaomi smartphone in India featuring Leica-branded cameras.
Having used the Xiaomi 14 Civi for about a week, we are impressed by its features: a 3,000nit display, Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset, triple camera setup with Leica tuning, and a premium design. It's intriguing how the company has managed to price the device under Rs 50,000. The base variant, considering all bank offers and exchange offers, can be bought for Rs 39,999. But what makes this pricing particularly interesting? Here's the thing. The sub-Rs 40,000 segment already has numerous smartphone options. The premium segment also offers many choices. However, the Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 segment has been relatively empty. In 2024, only one phone, the OnePlus 12R, was launched in this range. This is where the Xiaomi 14 Civi enters the scene.
But the issue isn't just that smartphone manufacturers have been avoiding this specific price segment. According to Xiaomi India’s CMO, creating a smartphone in this category is no simple task.
“Providing all these premium features at this price point is challenging,” says Anuj Sharma. “When you try to pack a device with high-end features, the prices and component costs increase significantly. Even with the Xiaomi 14 Civi, if we were any other brand, we would have priced this smartphone between Rs 55,000 to Rs 60,000. But we adhere to the Xiaomi way, so we can’t do that. Moreover, we don’t want to do that because we aim to open up a new market segment with an irresistible price.”
During the conversation, Sharma picks up the Xiaomi 14 Civi and remarks, “Achieving that balance is crucial, which I believe has been missing for a while.”
“The Xiaomi 14 Civi builds on where the Redmi Note leaves off. The Redmi Note 13 Pro+ is priced around Rs 31,000. The Xiaomi 14 Civi elevates everything from design, performance, storage, RAM, and especially the cameras, which are a significant leap forward. The Xiaomi 14 Civi’s camera is more comparable to the Xiaomi 14 than the Redmi Note,” Sharma elaborates.
But why name it Civi? For those not familiar, the Civi series launched in China in 2021 with a strong focus on design. As it enters the Indian market, Xiaomi is shifting this focus. Here, the emphasis remains on design, but substantial attention is also given to the phone’s display, camera, and battery performance. This is what Sharma shares with us, and as we test the 14 Civi, this becomes increasingly clear.
“This year, the Civi team in China revamped their strategy, creating a more balanced device that emphasizes performance, camera, and battery life, alongside design. That’s when we realized it was an ideal device for the Indian market, fitting well within the Xiaomi 14 series. Since it was developed by the Civi team, we retained the Civi name,” Sharma explains.
While we are keen to test the Xiaomi 14 Civi further (you can read our quick review of the phone here), we are also curious about the future of Xiaomi smartphones. We posed this question to Anuj Sharma. He responded, “We are just beginning to explore the camera capabilities of our smartphones. The new hardware and camera advantages will be fully realized when AI features are integrated, potentially transforming how users interact with their smartphones.”
Sharma also revealed that the company is working on new AI features aimed at enabling Xiaomi’s Human x Car x Home vision, although these are expected to be rolled out “sometime in the future.” According to him, these AI features will also reveal the true purpose of HyperOS.
Our final inquiry to Sharma was an attempt to gain insight into Xiaomi's future plans. The Xiaomi India CMO reluctantly hinted at plans to refresh a product lineup that “hasn’t been updated in a while.” Although Sharma did not divulge further details and quickly became reticent on the topic, we are speculating that it might be an air purifier.
