As the biggest Chinese phone makers saw their sales increase, the prices of devices also took a hike, as they tried to compete in more premium areas. For Xiaomi and LeEco that strategy didn’t seem very inspired.
These Chinese firms have reportedly reduced their orders of parts and components, on account of the smartphone sales being affected by price hikes. The info comes straight from Taiwanese suppliers so we tend to believe it. Xiaomi has registered online sales drops of smartphones of about 10% after it bumped up the prices of the Redmi 4 series products, including the Redmi 4 and Redmi 4A.
On average the increase came to $14.50, with the reason being higher prices for parts and components. LeEco also increased the price tag of the LeEco Pro 3 4 GB RAM unit by $14 and the same sum for the LeEco Pro 3 6 GB RAM model. Both vendors had their smartphone shipments drop by 42.4% and 39.5 % respectively in Q4 last year. Overall, smartphone shipments in China are expected to decline 19.3% on quarter and 2% on year in the first three months of the current year.
via Digitimes
