Xiaomi works with Leica on smartphone cameras

Chinese smartphone manufacturers regularly collaborate with traditional camera brands. For example, Oppo and OnePlus are working with Hasselblad, and Leica has worked with Huawei in the past to improve their smartphone photography. By the way, without equipping smartphones with a camera from Leica or Huawei, but using software to better adjust the Sony camera lens.

With such a collaboration, brands try to better position smartphones on the map when it comes to photography. So far, brands like Samsung, Google and Apple are miles ahead in this field. (Remarkably) They also use Sony lenses. These collaborations have yielded mixed results so far. Huawei has beaten competition with Leica in the past. At Oppo and OnePlus, the distance between major camera smartphone brands only seems to have increased after the collaboration with Hasselblad.

The collaboration between Xiaomi and Leica is particularly noteworthy because Leica has collaborated with Huawei in the past. While Huawei still manufactures smartphones, there is less focus here as sales have dropped since the trade embargo. Xiaomi is working hard to take over Huawei’s massive market share and seems to be the only brand to take advantage of it, along with Samsung and Apple.

Xiaomi’s attempt to seduce Huawei users is not subtle. For example, it says on the boxes of the smartphones that they “only” come with Google apps, which Huawei has no longer been able to do since the trade embargo. This cooperation with Leica, which brought Huawei to the agenda with its smartphones, is an extension of this.

In the announcement made by Xiaomi, the company announced that the first products of the collaboration will be presented in July.