This week has been significant for Redmi as the Chinese manufacturer launched some of the most awaited smartphones in the Indian market. The flagship-level phones, Redmi K20 and the Redmi K20 Pro which had made their way to the Chinese market were now introduced in India. However, ever since the launch, there has been a debate going online and among the fans about the pricing of the device and the interested buyers do not seem to be impressed with it. When asked about it, most of the people responded by saying that the expectations were pegged on a price point slightly higher than Rs 15,000, which is where the Realme X lands. But, given the pricing of the Redmi K20 which is priced at Rs 21,999 and the Redmi K20 Pro priced at Rs 27,999, we think that both of these devices are well worth their price tag.
Reason for Redmi K20 Pro's Higher Pricing
The debate on the pricing of the Redmi K20 and the Redmi K20 Pro went long on the battleground aka Twitter. The debacle was about whether or not the phone was priced right given its specifications, and for some time there was no official response from Xiaomi. However, finally, Xiaomi Global VP Manu Kumar Jain took the reins in his hand and wrote an open letter explaining the high pricing of the Redmi K20 and the Redmi K20 Pro.
Jain started the letter by stating the aim of Xiaomi with the launch of Redmi K20 and K20 Pro in India and reiterated that the phones aim to offer a flagship-level experience to the user and they seek to does so without making any cuts on any front. The entire Redmi K20 experience, he said, is about the premium-level performance. The letter from Jain read, "Redmi K20 series is our honest attempt at that. The flagship Redmi K20 series has been in the works for more than a year. This involved a large team dedicatedly working towards perfecting the product and ensuring a truly exceptional experience for all our fans."
Further, the Xiaomi exec justified the price by saying that the Redmi K20 Pro comes with Snapdragon 855 SoC which is the fastest smartphone chipset in the world right now and has made its position in flagship phones only. Not only this, but the Redmi K20 Pro offers other features as well like Horizon AMOLED display, fire and ice design, no display ads, 7th generation in-display sensor, Game Turbo 2, 48MP AI-based main camera, among other things. He also noted that the specs that these devices ship are usually only seen on devices in the range of Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000.
Chipset Costs Driving Up the Prices of Flagship Devices
Talking about the expenses on these devices, Manu Kumar Jain said, "Please note that latest technology gets cheaper with time; we could have used older generation processors to save money or we could have waited for 6 months for component costs to go down, and hence further reduce the price of the Redmi K20. But that would have gone against our philosophy of bringing the latest innovation to you." He also added that the Snapdragon 855 and the Snapdragon 730 cost much more for the device manufacturers as compared to Snapdragon 845 and the Snapdragon 710.
Justifying the China and India price difference of the devices, Jain said that the Indian variant of the phone comes with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage instead of 6GB RAM and 64GB storage which is the case with the Chinese variant. He further remarked, "Retaining our commitment to honest pricing, Redmi K20 series also has less than 5 per cent net profit as per the company's policy."
