As Xiaomi gears up to launch its Redmi Note 14 series in India, its chief marketing officer (CMO), Anuj Sharma, recently posted a note on X, which began with two simple sentences:
“The Redmi Note is not the same. It is better.”
Many would agree with the first statement, but the second sentence is the stuff of which online tech riots are made. This is because the Redmi Note has undergone some very significant changes in recent years. Anuj Sharma is spot on when he says that the Redmi Note is not the same, and in spec and performance terms, it certainly is better than its predecessors. Its biggest challenge, however, is not in terms of its hardware or software performance but in being seen as a worthy successor of the OG Note. Once a proud privilege, the Note’s past is increasingly becoming an albatross that is dragging down its new iterations.
Perhaps India’s most successful phone series
In terms of phone series, it would not be an understatement to say that the Redmi Note series is perhaps the most successful phone series in the history of the Indian smartphone market. While there had been devices that had sold large numbers (the Nokia 1100 and 3310, for instance), this success was often limited to one or two models that became ‘trendy,’ with other models not quite following in their sales success footsteps. The Redmi Note, however, kept racking up record sales year after year, edition after edition. So much so that for a while, Xiaomi executives would stress at launches that if the Redmi Note was an independent phone brand, it would be one of the top ten smartphone brands in the country.
The reason for its success was that it was very difficult to match the price-to-performance ratio. The Redmi Note was often not the first phone in its segment with certain features (it got dual cameras, USB Type C ports, and AMOLED displays well after its rivals had), but when it did bring those features to the series, they came at an incredibly affordable price and with rock solid performance. In fact, many was the briefing in which Xiaomi executives defended the brand’s decision to bypass a trendy new feature, insisting that the Note was for mainstream users who valued performance at an affordable price more than bells and whistles that drove up the price. The whole “we are giving you something amazing at a surprising price, even though we might miss out on a few things to accommodate that price” was a winner, and the fact that the series was initially showcased by the extremely charismatic Hugo Barra helped.
Change, however, is inevitable. As time passed (and Barra passed on to Facebook), the Redmi Note had its share of changes, expanding in terms of new models (Pro, Pro Max, et al.), but by and large stuck to the classic “amazing value for not too much money” template that made it a roaring success. A Pro or Pro Max model might have the odd extra feature (an additional camera, a larger display), but it remained very close to the basic Redmi Note, which was the foundation of the series. Above all, the series still continued to surprise the competition and consumers alike with just how much it offered for its price – the Redmi Note 7 Pro (interestingly launched by Anuj Sharma) was a case in point, bringing a flagship 48-megapixel Sony IMX586 sensor that was generally seen in phones with 3-4 times the Note’s price tag, which steadfastly stuck to being in the region of Rs 10,000 – Rs 15,000.
The Note changes Note-ably
In 2021, however, the Note’s world changed. This was the year when the Redmi Note shot up the price ladder dramatically. Some attributed this move to OnePlus posing a threat to Redmi’s segment by releasing the Nord series, which started as a premium mid-segment offering with the OG Nord in 2020 but was sniffing at Redmi’s part of the market with a much more affordable Nord CE. Whatever the reason, the Redmi Note 10 came in four versions: a plain 10, 10 Pro, 10S, and 10 Pro Max variants. Of these, the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max started at Rs 18,999, well above the Rs 14,999 the Redmi Note 9 Pro Max had been launched at, and more than 50 percent higher than the Rs 11,999 at which the plain Redmi Note 10 had been launched.
For the first time, there was a huge performance and price gulf between the basic Note and its Pro/Pro Max variants. While the series did well in terms of sales, it came at the dilution of its basic identity. Although they shared a similar design language, the spec and performance veins beneath this veneer were radically different. This already watered-down brand identity was pretty much swept away by multiple waves and models of the Redmi Note 11 that arrived in 2022. The Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G, Redmi Note 11 Pro, Redmi Note 11S, Redmi Note 11T, Redmi Note 11T Pro, Redmi Note 11T Pro+, and the Redmi Note 11E were just some of the phones that added prefixes to the very basic Redmi Note 11, which was kind of lost in this Note-able flood with prices that ranged from Rs 12,000 to Rs 25,000. Sales continued to be impressive overall, but the only thing Note-able about the Note was its name.
As the number of models went up, the Redmi Note’s USP of ‘staggering value for not too much money’ all but disappeared – it was like stretching a single topping across multiple pizzas! The Redmi Note, by now, had become just another phone, representing so many things with so many suffixes to so many people that its core identity had ceased to exist. Some called it growth, some called it extinction, and the truth, as always, lay somewhere in between: the Redmi Note was still doing good numbers, but to quote Anuj Sharma’s words of a few days ago, it was “not the same.”
Stepping away from roots, trying to grow premium branches
Perhaps Xiaomi realized that the Note was perhaps losing momentum (in terms of perception, if not as much in sales) because in 2022, it streamlined and repositioned the series. It took the Note series into the ‘premium mid-segment’ with the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ starting at a price of Rs 29,999, which was a staggering Rs 9,000 more than the Rs 20,999 starting price of the Redmi Note 11 Pro+. The Note series was also divided into three clear divisions – a top-of-the-line premium Pro Plus, a slightly less well-specced but still close to premium mid-segment Pro, and a base plain Note that was between Rs 15,000 – Rs 20,000. The Note’s goalposts had shifted – it was now about being basically brilliant rather than brilliantly basic. The zone that it bossed was now handed over to the plain Redmi series. The “crazy specs and performance at a surprising price” proposition gave way to “competitive specs and performance at a competitive price.” While the OG Note was in a zone of its own, the more premium one faced a lot of competition from the likes of the OnePlus Nord and Vivo’s iQOO range. The new Redmi Note came with more brains than its predecessors, but it was no longer a no-brainer.
Should Xiaomi have gone with a different brandname instead of taking the Redmi Note series out of its comfort zone? It did flirt with the K series for a while for devices priced in the region of Rs 25,000 – Rs 30,000, with some success. We will never know. What we do know is that with the Redmi 12 series, the OG Redmi Note pricing spirit was laid to rest? The new Note stood for something rather different and targeted a different audience from its ancestors. While there were takers for this new Note, its price jump also disappointed and angered a lot of OG Note loyalists. This is a phenomenon that Xiaomi’s rival, OnePlus, had faced when it had taken the big step from being a flagship killer to being a premium flagship itself.
These are the feels you get when the street food you loved and could easily afford at a tiny, friendly stall moves to a fancy restaurant under an expensive price tag. One can make one’s peace with it if the move comes with a good explanation or powerful narrative. Unfortunately, Xiaomi has not been able to deliver one and has stuck to the “expanding horizons and expectations of our users” line that many brands use. Perhaps it could have opened the fancy restaurant while leaving the street food stall in place. Perhaps…
Moving from food similes to phones, the Note 13 series continued in the same vein as the Note 12 series, with a premium-ish Note 13 Pro+, a slightly less premium Note 13 Pro, and a Note 13 that was way behind both these in terms of performance and price. The new strategy and approach seem to be yielding dividends – the Note 13 series has done impressively well in terms of sales. From what we have heard so far, the Note 14 series will follow in its footsteps. We are expecting a premium Pro Plus, a slightly less premium Pro, and a somewhat basic Note. They are all Redmi Notes, but are they?
What the new Notes will offer and at what price will be revealed in a few days. Anuj Sharma has asked people to “Expect a product crafted to exceed your expectations, delivering not just innovation but an even better Note experience.” The key word here is not “expectations,” “innovation” or “experience.” It is “Note.”
So when he (or whoever Xiaomi chooses for the task) takes the stage on 9 December to unveil the new Redmi Note 14 series, their biggest challenge will not be to prove that the “Redmi Note is not the same.” It stopped being the same a while ago. It would be to show that whether Pro Plus, Pro, or without a suffix, “the” new Redmi Note is still “a” Redmi Note, a worthy bearer of the Note legacy, and not just another warrior in a spec army on which you can stick any label. And even as they attempt to do this, lurking in the background will be the history of the OG Note, which many are not willing to forget and which, to them, still is what the Note really represents: basic brilliance rather than mid-segment excellence. Some would say that the sales of the Redmi Note speak for themselves. Perhaps they do, but they need to tell a story to the OG Redmi Note fans to make them understand that the Notes, old and new, are on the same page.
It is a challenge that is both Noteworthy and Noteable. Pun intended.
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