Xiaomi India Announces: They Will Never Sell Phones Priced Over $699

Xiaomi is known for its relatively affordable smartphones. Many prefer handsets from this brand because it always comes with an attractive price-over-hardware ratio. But the time changes. If previously, the Chinese flagships were priced at around 2000-3000 yuan ($291-437), now their price tags exceed 3000 yuan. They are even approaching to 4000 yuan ($583). And if these price changes are still competitive in the western markets, there are too many regions that have chosen Xiaomi because of its low pricing. So this changes may affect the sales in those markets. As you guess, the biggest and the most important of them is India.

Recently, Huawei and OPPO launched superior smartphones in face of the Huawei Mate RS Porsche Design and the OPPO Find X. They were priced at 9999 yuan ($1590) and 4999 yuan ($756), respectively. As you understand, there are a few other models priced over 4000 yuan. As for Xiaomi, its most expensive model is the Xiaomi Mi 8 Explorer Edition available at starting 3599 yuan ($527). Thus, Xiaomi is still the best phone brand in terms of pricing, at least.

Recently, Manu Kumar Jain, general manager of Xiaomi India, said that the company will never sell smartphones for $699 (about 4,700 yuan) or higher. He also said no technology currently forces the price of Xiaomi phones to exceed $699. But we understand with this pace of development, everything is possible.

At the same time, we should recall Xiaomi CEO, Lei Jun’s words that the profit margin of Xiaomi’s hardware would not exceed 5%. We see the company continues bringing the cheapest models to the market. Recently, it released the lowest-priced Snapdragon 845 smartphone in face of the Pocophone F1, which only costs $299.