Xiaomi is aware of rumours speculating that its smartphones no longer support Google Mobile Services (GMS). This came after the Chinese brand was placed under a US government blacklist which fueled speculation that it is at risk of suffering the same fate as Huawei.

Xiaomi said that this rumour is not true and they have issued a statement to debunk the false claims. In their official response through Xiaomi’s spokesperson account on Weibo, they emphasised that international models are not affected and will come with Google Mobile Services. Xiaomi will officially announce its Mi 11 flagship smartphone tomorrow for global markets and it is confirmed to come with Google apps and services pre-installed.

They also admitted that not all China-market Xiaomi devices will support GMS. For models that don’t support GMS framework, Xiaomi will not allow users to self-install Google Apps and services. Unlike global markets, Google apps and services are typically not immediately accessible on phones that are sold domestically in China.

They do however, mentioned that they will release more domestic models with GMS to fulfil customers demand. The statement didn’t clearly mention which domestic models are lacking GMS.

This means you’ll still get Google Play Store and popular apps including YouTube, Gmail and Google Maps if you are outside of China. However, consumers should take note when considering to buy imported sets from China as some models may not come with the GMS framework.

It is also worth highlighting that the US blacklist that Xiaomi is on is different from Huawei. Xiaomi isn’t prohibited from dealing with US firms and this means they are still able to deal with companies such as Google and Qualcomm. However, the blacklist bars US firms from investing into Xiaomi and they have to sell their stocks by 11th November 2021.