The departure of Xiaomi sub-brand Poco’s project manager sparked speculation the Chinese vendor could ditch the smartphone range just shy of a year after releasing its first device.

In an update to his Twitter profile, Jai Mani said he was now “ex-PM” of the brand and Xiaomi India. He appeared to show an interest in future opportunities around healthcare and technology, stating direct messages around these, “especially mental health”, were open.

The head of Xiaomi India, Manu Jain, declined to be drawn on the future of the Poco brand, The Economic Times (ET) reported. While a representative later told the newspaper Mani’s departure would not affect the sub-brand, IDC India research director Navkendar Singh commented the devices had received a mixed response.

When launching the brand, Mani stated its mission was to buck the trend of rising prices in the smartphone market, with high-end features at affordable price points. The first model, Pocophone F1, sported a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, 4000mAh battery, dual rear cameras with AI scene detection, and a liquid cooling set-up. Prices started at €329 in 6GB RAM and 64GB storage configuration.

However, analysts told ET the focus of Poco overlaps with Redmi, which Xiaomi spun-out into a separate sub-brand earlier this year. Last month, the vendor also detailed plans for a line of youth-oriented smartphones under the CC moniker.

Despite launching the F1 almost a year ago, India Today noted the vendor is yet to confirm if there will be a second device from the sub-brand.

Exit
Separately, Xiaomi global representative Donovan Sung also announced his departure after five years with the vendor.

In a series of Twitter posts, Sung thanked Xiaomi’s leadership team and pointed to the vendor’s rapid rise, with expansion to more than 80 countries and displacing Samsung as India’s largest smartphone brand.

Sung is taking up a role with Google in Singapore involving the web giant’s mobile money play Google Pay.