Xiaomi deleted its online Twitter poll allowing the company’s fans to vote for whether they prefer its own MIUI or an Android One experience, as first noted by one Reddit user. The poll was launched last Wednesday and ran for several days before being removed, though its last known status was preserved by one Twitter user and can be seen below. Based on over 14,700 responses, 57-percent of Twitter users prefer Android One over MIUI. The Chinese original equipment manufacturer hasn’t reflected on the removal of the poll in any capacity and isn’t expected to do so, with the most likely reason for the deletion being the results that don’t favor the firm’s proprietary mobile software based on the Android operating system.
Xiaomi’s motivation to pit MIUI against a stock Android experience is unclear since the company already embraced Google’s Android One program with the Mi A1 mid-ranger released last year. The smartphone was met with a largely positive response from both critics and consumers alike, though it’s currently unclear whether the Chinese OEM is planning to follow up on it with more similar value-oriented offerings running a vanilla version of Android. The results of its recently deleted Twitter poll can arguably be labeled as surprising given how the majority of responders were presumably fans of Xiaomi and — by extent — MIUI, whereas the firm likely wouldn’t have launched the popularity contest in the first place if it expected its own contender to lose it. MIUI is still one of the more popular Android-based operating systems among tech enthusiasts, even though Xiomi itself has a somewhat strained relationship with the open-source development community due to its sometimes license-violating lack of urgency when it comes to releasing kernel sources for its devices.
The Beijing-based company has an extremely successful year behind it, with most industry trackers estimating Xiaomi managed to almost double its global smartphone shipments over 2017. India remains the firm’s strongest growth engine and is expected to receive a wide variety of new devices in 2018, starting with the Redmi Note 5 which has already been teased for a February 14 announcement in the South Asian country. Xiaomi is also said to be planning to hold an initial public offering later this year, reportedly targeting a valuation of up to $100 billion.
— Raju PP (@rajupp) February 9, 2018