Mivi could soon enter the smartphone space; teaser goes live on Flipkart

Audio brand Mivi is seemingly preparing to expand beyond earbuds and speakers with its debut smartphone in India. A promotional poster that recently went live on Flipkart teases the corner of a smartphone, giving us the first official glimpse of the device. This comes after Mivi’s close rival, Fire-Boltt, debuted its smartphone sub-brand with Boltt. The company has not yet shared the phone’s official name, exact launch date, full specifications, or pricing. These details are expected to be revealed closer to the official announcement.

Mivi smartphone teaser goes live on Flipkart

According to the teaser, Mivi’s first phone will be sold through Flipkart, at least initially. The marketing material shows the handset in a green colour option and highlights a clean design featuring a flat back panel with gently rounded corners. The strategy of targeting the online-first segment with potentially aggressive pricing is a tried-and-tested path, but Mivi’s success may require going beyond just differentiating by cost.

Mivi is known for offering affordable audio products, including true wireless earbuds (TWS), Bluetooth speakers, soundbars, and AI-powered devices. The move into smartphones marks a significant expansion for the audio brand. The teaser arrives shortly after reports that Mivi had onboarded Himanshu Tandon, who previously worked with POCO and CMF by Nothing, signalling serious intent in the competitive smartphone space.

Interestingly, Mivi’s entry comes around the same time as that of another wearable-focused brand, Fire-Boltt, which has launched its own smartphones under the Boltt sub-brand today, starting at Rs 9,999. Both companies appear to be targeting the online-first segment of the Indian market and will rely on Flipkart for distribution. Boltt has confirmed it’s set to target the sub-Rs 20,000 segment with the release of two smartphones, Boltt Evo 4G and Boltt Ace 5G, both of which are confirmed to feature bloatware-free, stock-like Android software.

Where does Mivi fit in the highly competitive phone market?

With major brands such as OPPO, Vivo, Realme, and others releasing 4G phones starting at above Rs 15,000 and 5G phones touching Rs 20,000, this leaves newcomers like Mivi and Boltt to fill the gap and try to get a piece of the pie by releasing phones at attractive prices. This opportunity comes amid the ongoing memory price crisis, in which legacy brands are unable to keep up with rising component costs, forcing them to continually raise prices on both new and old models.

On the other hand, after-sales service, a refined software experience with regular updates, and sufficient availability of spare parts matter equally to the success of a new brand. Therefore, only time will tell how well Mivi and Boltt will fare in these respects and, accordingly, build a customer base.