Xiaomi hikes prices of its budget phones yet again

Redmi India has hiked the prices of its budget phones yet again. The latest hike of Rs.500 will be reflecting on its official website and all offline retail stores starting today. Previously, the company had hiked the prices of its phones twice for various reasons including a GST hike by the government.

The smartphones affected by the latest hike are the Redmi Note 8, Redmi 8 and Redmi 8A dual. This price hike of Rs.500 has increased the price of the Redmi Note 8 to nearly Rs.2,000 from the launch price. The third price hike, however, as spotted by 91Mobiles is for an unknown reason. The same handsets have now had a price hike twice in a span of two months.

Redmi launched the Redmi Note 8 in October last year at a price tag of Rs.9,999. The budget models like the Redmi 8 and the Redmi 8A came prior to the Note 8. You can find the details of the new price hike below:

Model	Variant	Previous Price	New Price
Redmi note 8	4GB RAM, 64GB ROM	Rs 11,499	Rs 11,999
Redmi Note 8	6GB RAM, 128GB ROM	Rs 13,999	Rs 14,499
Redmi 8	4GB RAM, 64GB ROM	Rs 9,299	Rs 9,499
Redmi 8A Dual	2GB RAM, 32GB ROM	Rs.7,299	Rs.7,499

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The first hike of these handsets came in early April when the company was forced to increase the prices of its devices following a GST revision by the Indian
government as it increased the tax percentage of smartphones from 12% to 18%. This was followed by an explained hike of about Rs.500 a few days back on these same handsets. Realme followed suit soon after with hikes on the Realme C3 and Realme C2. 

Following the GST hike, the outbreak of Coronavirus has stressed things even further as factories remained shut for the majority of March and April. However, things have been resuming in phases following government’s guidelines despite the outbreak still to abate.

The latest price hike by Redmi means that Realme could also do the same in the coming days as it did last time for a number of budget devices in its line up. However, it will be interesting to see how this price hike will reflect in the sales in the coming days.

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