A new player has appeared in the segment of gaming smartphones, which is an aggressive competitor. Redmi launched its first ever gaming smartphone, the gaming version of the Redmi K40, a few days ago. And now the company seems to know why gaming phones are not popular. According to Lu Weibing, CEO of the Redmi brand, the company is involved in the gaming industry to promote it.
According to him, gaming smartphones are not popular because they are too expensive. He believes that the current sales of gaming smartphones are not great because of the price threshold. In addition, he claims that there is no pseudo-demand for gaming smartphones, only high prices. He said:
"Today, the cost of one processor is 10 dollars, and the memory or screen is even more expensive. There is also a marketing cost. When we add these costs, it will be very difficult to have cheap gaming smartphones. Thus, the popularization of gaming smartphones becomes very difficult"
Lu Weibing believes that gaming mobile phone manufacturers have some problems in their direction and thinking.
"The initial cost is very expensive and everyone wants to sell for more money. This led to the product deviating from the user's needs, so now we need to go back and pull it back.”
Redmi claims to sell at least 1,7 million gaming versions of the Redmi K40 this year. We will remind that the total volume of sales of gaming smartphones from all manufacturers in China is about 1,7 million.
Why did Redmi join the gaming market?
Speaking about the reasons for entering the gaming market, Lu Weibing explained that Redmi users are getting younger, especially K series users. The majority of these users are in their 20s, and they spend more time playing games.
Second, Redmi has been watching and exploring the gaming phone category for some time now. The data shows that the sales of gaming phones in the Chinese market in 2020 will be only 1,6 - 1,7 million units. In addition, the price of gaming phones will become more expensive.
The gaming version of the Redmi K40 comes with a starting price of 1999 yuan (US$309). This makes it the cheapest gaming smartphone on the market. Apart from the price, Lu Weibing also tries to solve several major problems of today's game phones. This smartphone is only 8,3 mm thick and weighs only 205 g. This defeats the usual tendency for gaming smartphones to be heavy and thick.
