After bumping prices of its Redmi Note 10 smartphone by Rs 500, Xiaomi will now increase prices on its smart TVs. A recent report suggests that Xiaomi India will hike prices on the Mi and Redmi smart TV models in India following global component price increases. The new prices will come into effect from July 1, says the report.
The company is expected to increase prices across all its smart TV models between 3 percent to 6 percent. This will result in some marginal increases across the range. Moreover, there was a price hike of up to 12 percent earlier in the year, which eventually translates to pricier smart TVs for consumers. Hence, 2021 has seen the most price hike in this segment.
Xiaomi to hike smart TV prices
The increase in prices is attributed to the global chip shortage, eventually resulting in increased component prices. Industry experts have said that memory chipsets are seeing 20 percent increase in cost. Battery packs prices have also risen by 10 percent. Other components such as camera modules and sensors are also costlier by 5 percent.
“Since the last one year, we have witnessed shortages across the supply chain. Due to massive demand-supply mismatch, the majority of components used in smartphones, Smart TV and other electronic gadgets (chipsets, display panels, display driver, back panels, battery, etc.) have seen constant upward movement in their prices,” said a Xiaomi spokesperson to ET Telecom.
“This, coupled with an unprecedented increase in shipping charges has had an effect on almost all the technology players including us. While we have tried to absorb the increasing costs, some of our products including the Redmi Note 10, have witnessed a price hike,” adds the spokesperson.
Will this price increase affect consumer demand? Analysts nod positively, especially after the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic that the country underwent recently. The chip shortage is expected to ease by the third quarter and that’s when we could see lowering prices, only if brands decide to adjust in the future.
Recently, the company hiked prices of the popular Redmi Note 10 in India by Rs 500 across all the storage variants. It remains to be seen whether other phones will see further price hikes.
