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Table of contents Xiaomi 17 Series Everything else announced Pricing On Saturday, February 28, Xiaomi held its biggest international hardware showcase yet in Barcelona, Spain. The event took place just days before Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2026. It served as the global stage for the Xiaomi 17 series, alongside a major expansion of Xiaomi’s “Human x Car x Home” ecosystem. Xiaomi President William Lu set the tone early. Under the theme “The New Wave of Imagery,” he pointed to 2025 as a breakthrough year for the company with €55 billion in revenue, and announced plans to invest €24 billion in research and development. over the next five years. This event was a statement of intent to take on the premium smartphone market head-on. According to Counterpoint Research and Canalys, Xiaomi has ranked as the world’s third-largest smartphone brand for five consecutive years and now holds strong positions in wearables and tablets too. In Barcelona, the company leaned hard into “Essential Leica Imagery” and its “Strategic Co-creation Model,” where hardware and software are built together to recreate the look and feel of legendary cameras. The goal is a unified ecosystem, not a collection of separate gadgets. Xiaomi 17 Series The centrepiece of the Barcelona event was the global debut of the Xiaomi 17 series, comprising the Xiaomi 17 and the imaging-focused Xiaomi 17 Ultra. Both phones run on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, a 3nm processor built for high performance and on-device AI. One thing to note: the global versions have slightly adjusted battery sizes compared to their Chinese counterparts, which is standard practice due to international certification requirements and the goal of a slimmer chassis. 1. Xiaomi 17 Image source: Xiaomi on YouTube The Xiaomi 17 is built for people who want a compact flagship without sacrificing anything. At 6.3 inches, it is designed to sit comfortably in your hand while delivering the same top-tier performance you would expect from a much larger phone. Design-wise, the display bezels are just 1.18mm thin, achieved through LIPO display packaging technology, giving the phone an almost borderless look. The screen uses an M10 display panel with SuperRED luminous material, hitting a peak brightness of 3,500 nits. That means the display holds up even under intense sunlight. It supports 1.5K resolution, a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, and is protected by Xiaomi Dragon Crystal Glass. One of the biggest talking points at the event was the 6,330mAh silicon-carbon battery. That is the largest battery capacity you will find in any 6.3-inch flagship today, with an energy density of 894Wh/L. For charging, you get 100W wired HyperCharge and 50W wireless HyperCharge, with 22.5W reverse wireless charging as well. On the camera side, the Xiaomi 17 packs a Leica-branded triple 50MP system. The primary sensor is the Light Fusion 950, measuring 1/1.31-inch and featuring a 13.5EV dynamic range. That sits alongside a 50MP ultra-wide (102 degree FOV) and a 50MP floating telephoto lens with 2.6x optical zoom and 10cm macro capability. The front camera is also 50MP and supports 4K/60fps video. Under the hood, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 pairs with up to 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage. The phone also carries an IP68 dust and water resistance rating. Pricing and availability The Xiaomi 17 starts at €999 for the 256GB variant and €1,099 for the 512GB model. Official Nigeria pricing has not been announced yet, but based on historical trends and the ongoing global memory shortage, expect a price range of ₦1,250,000 to ₦1,450,000. The phone will be available in Black, Venture Green, Alpine Pink, and Ice Blue starting in early March 2026. 2. Xiaomi 17 Ultra Image source: Xiaomi on YouTube The Xiaomi 17 Ultra is designed for photographers, content creators, and anyone who wants the absolute best in mobile imaging. It is also the first Ultra model to feature a flat display, which improves ergonomics without sacrificing screen quality. Despite housing a massive camera module, the phone measures just 8.29mm thick. The display is a 6.9-inch 2K LTPO AMOLED panel with peak brightness of 3,500 nits, a 120Hz refresh rate, and support for 68 billion colours. Inside, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is paired with a 3D Dual-Channel IceLoop cooling system that improves thermal conductivity by 50% compared to the previous generation. Memory goes up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 1TB of storage. The camera setup is what separates the 17 Ultra from everything else. It features a triple-camera array co-engineered with Leica, anchored by a 50MP Light Fusion 1050L primary shooter with a 1-inch-type sensor and next-generation LOFIC High Dynamic technology, delivering an industry-leading 16.5EV sensor dynamic range. The standout component is the 200MP periscope telephoto lens with continuous optical zoom from 75mm to 100mm (3.2x to 4.3x), capable of lossless 17.2x optical-level zoom and 26cm macro shots. The front camera shoots 4K at 120fps with Log support for professional video work. Battery capacity is 6,000mAh with 90W wired HyperCharge and 50W wireless HyperCharge. The phone supports 51 roaming bands across 210 countries and carries an IP69 rating for high-pressure water resistance. Pricing and availability The Xiaomi 17 Ultra is priced at €1,499 for the 512GB version and €1,699 for the 1TB model. In Nigeria, expect a price range of ₦2,200,000 to ₦2,600,000. That jump from its predecessor reflects both the global DRAM shortage and currency shifts. Colour options are Starlit Green, White, and Black, with availability starting in early March 2026. 3. Leica Leitzphone powered by Xiaomi Image source: Xiaomi on YouTube One of the biggest surprises in Barcelona was the global launch of the Leica Leitzphone powered by Xiaomi. This is a special edition of the 17 Ultra built to mark 100 years of Leica, and it goes far beyond putting a logo on the back. Leica’s own optical engineers were directly involved in the hardware and industrial design, modelling it after the aesthetic of the Leica M-series cameras. The phone has a durable aluminium-alloy body with
Read MoreThe intersection between innovation and regulation took centre stage at the Zikoko Citizen Townhall on Saturday, February 28, themed, “Who shapes the Nigerian life?” Held at the Four Points by Sheraton in Lagos, industry leaders dissected the psychological and financial toll of regulatory uncertainty, offering a pragmatic roadmap for founders navigating one of the world’s most volatile business environments. Speaking on a panel titled “Innovation under pressure: How politics shapes what can be built in Nigeria,” Oswald Osaretin Guobadia, Managing Partner at DigitA, an advisory and policy development firm, challenged the notion that innovation must always outpace the law. He argued that the friction often stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what new technology represents to those in power. “The government doesn’t understand disruption,” he said. “What they see is displacement. Essentially, what they’re saying is that they see that something has changed. In the absence of understanding, actions will be taken in the form of bans and a number of other tools that the government has at its disposal.” Amaka Okechukwu Opara, Founding Partner at Weav Capital, a venture capital fund that invests in gender-smart companies, pointed to specific interventions that laid the groundwork for the current tech boom. “Other countries came to Lagos to understand how to do better in terms of right of way, and the building of fibre optics in Lagos. That was one of the big things that spread in the hubs in Yaba,” Opara said. However, she also pointed out the unfavourable realities of the present day, where macroeconomic instability threatens to undo such progress. “[Exchange rates] have real implications on businesses. Businesses are struggling and are building despite what I can say is one of the toughest environments for doing business in the world,” she said. The personal cost of this volatility was echoed by Douglas Kendyson, founder and CEO of Selar, an e-commerce startup that helps creators sell products, who offered a nuanced view. “Regulation is not there to cloud businesses,” he said. “The honest idea is that they’re there to protect the citizens.” However, he recalled the 2021 cryptocurrency ban as a moment where that protection felt more like a threat. Addressing how to break this cycle of “displacement,” Guobadia emphasised that the missing component is active citizen and founder participation in the halls of power. He suggested that the gap between the private sector and the state is often a matter of communication. “It’s important that those of us who are creating amazing ideas find a way to engage the government and the policymakers on what you’re trying to achieve,” he said. Opara reinforced the need for proactive engagement of policymakers, framing it as a core business function rather than an afterthought. In her view, ignoring the regulator is a form of negligence. “If you’re a fit tech company and you’re not already going to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) regularly, then you’re doing something wrong. You have to be proactive and engaged,” she said.
Read MoreIn 2018, Tayo Aina boarded a plane headed to Russia for the FIFA World Cup without a visa. He did not watch football, but his friends planned to watch the tournament live, so he took the opportunity to leave Africa for the first time. With about *₦300,000 ($$831.06) gathered from his filmmaking side gigs, he bought a return flight ticket and landed in Moscow in the middle of June. The Russian parliament had just approved a bill make the country visa-free throughout the World Cup. To qualify, all visitors needed to do was buy a flight ticket, which granted them a FAN ID that served as a permit to fly into Russia. That trip was the beginning of a new kind of hunger for Aina. “It was a lot of exposure,” he said, realising life was different from what he had known. “Life doesn’t have to be the way it was in Lagos—people can live differently.” In the month he had toured Moscow, watched football matches, and taken midnight walks without fear, Aina decided, he would see the rest of Africa. “[I realised,] if I could go back to Africa, then I could travel more,” he said. “Let me go across Africa, too, [and see] what Africa is like.” This is the story of Tayo Aina, YouTube creator, filmmaker, and tech founder. Aina had spent time working within the tech space before ever transitioning into the media. Before he ventured into travel and film production, he was building Spacebook, an app to book a space for events, meetings, and vacations, which he intended to be the ‘Airbnb of Africa.’ He soon realised that Spacebook was not viable, and coming off a tech career pathway, later worked as an Uber driver in Lagos in 2017, which allowed him to see places he ordinarily would not. In between rides, he would watch YouTube videos that exposed him to international creators documenting other cities. As an Uber rider, driving customers to restaurants and diverse locations, he began documenting places to visit with the phone he had at the time, then uploading them to YouTube. Eventually, Aina rented equipment to film weddings, events, and construction sites privately for clients. It was not until April 2018, when an international music star, J Cole, visited Nigeria, and Aina offered his team free video coverage in exchange for a ticket to his concert, that he realised the impact he could make with the videos he created. In under 48 hours, Aina edited the video of the performance surrounded by a crowd pulsing with energy, and uploaded it to his YouTube channel, garnering him a million views at the time. As Aina created videos, he began to recognise the power of the stories he told, revealing Lagos and Nigeria in ways his audience and the curious public did not seem to have experienced. “I started to see comments of people saying, ‘I’ve never seen Nigeria like this, or Lagos like this before, or now I have something to show my friends in the US or UK,” he recalled. It became obvious that he wasn’t just making videos but telling powerful stories that were changing perceptions. From his observation, the people commonly documenting the stories of African were non-Africans, and while it was ‘cool to watch,’ nuances and context were different, and sometimes missing. Aina is clear about why the African perspective matters, whether home or abroad: “A white person who lives in New York, their lifestyle and their perception are different from someone who grew up in Nigeria, moved to New York and is now living there. And I felt like nobody was capturing that.” How a global lockdown birthed the ‘Made in Africa’ series After Aina’s trip to watch the World Cup in Moscow, he returned more resolute to document the rest of Africa beyond Nigeria’s borders. “That’s how it started,” he admitted. “It became a bigger vision of ‘let me showcase Africa’.” Aina did not make his next international trip till a year after when he visited Kenya; all the while, he continued to upload videos on YouTube and create content for private clients. In February 2020, he planned a one-month visit to South Africa. While in the country, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the country, rolling with vineyards and wine tasting cellars, came to a standstill. The lockdown extended Tayo’s one-month visit to an eight-month stay. It was here that his lens started to take a different subject. “I felt that as I’m promoting culture[s], and tourism,” he said. “ I also want to promote the people because I know how hard it is to build a business, and black people, Africans need as much support as they can get.” With the lockdown, Aina had ample time. When his friend mentioned his mechanic, a Yoruba man from Nigeria with a story worth telling, Aina grabbed his camera and went off to the workshop. In the midst of metal drilling, soapy bonnets and polished car trunks, the ‘Made in Africa’ series was born. “Those are conversations that I would normally have without the camera,” Aina said. “It was me sharing that interest, bringing it onto a camera and making it, in a way, a lot of people can learn from how others build their businesses.” Aina returned to Nigeria in October, but not before gaining his first 100,000 subscribers while in South Africa. Later that year, YouTube monetised his channel. It took a while to access his funds because of the logistics around receiving his AdSense PIN, but eventually, he did and received his first payout in 2021. As he continued to travel, telling stories of cultures and the people behind them, Aina started to get enquiries about creating videos and growing a successful YouTube channel. “I always wished there was somebody who could take me through the process of how to grow a YouTube channel… but I never found that,” he said. Driven by a desire to distil years of trial, error and growth
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