The rumour mill around iQOO's next flagship has taken a sharp turn, and not in the direction fans in India were hoping for. According to tipster Yogesh Brar, the upcoming iQOO 16 could be shelved for the Indian market entirely, with rising global memory chip prices being cited as the primary reason. If the phone does eventually make its way to India, industry watchers suggest its price tag could cross the eye-watering Rs 85,000 mark, a figure that would fundamentally alter how the brand is perceived by Indian consumers.
This isn't a small shift. Just two years ago, iQOO was known as the brand that packed flagship-grade performance into far more accessible price tags. The iQOO 13, launched at Rs 54,999, and the more recent iQOO 15, which debuted at Rs 72,999, tell the story clearly. Each successive generation has crept further up the price ladder, and memory and storage components, key cost drivers in any smartphone, appear to be squeezing manufacturers harder than ever before.
Brar's comments go beyond just the iQOO 16's fate. He indicated that iQOO's India roadmap for the rest of the year looks unusually thin, with only one budget-friendly device, expected to be part of the Z series, still on the cards. Everything else, it seems, has either been delayed or quietly dropped from the lineup. For a brand that built its reputation on aggressive pricing and frequent launches, this kind of pullback is notable.
The bigger concern for iQOO is positioning. A price point north of Rs 85,000 would place the iQOO 16 uncomfortably close to OnePlus, long considered its chief rival in the Indian premium segment. iQOO's entire value proposition has rested on offering flagship specifications at a noticeably lower cost than OnePlus and other established players. Losing that price advantage could blur the very identity that helped the brand carve out a loyal following among performance-focused buyers in India.
iQOO isn't alone in facing this squeeze. CMF, the budget-focused sub-brand under Nothing, reportedly ran into similar cost pressures and stepped back from its own budget phone plans. Nothing itself has indicated there won't be a direct successor to the Phone 3 this year. Taken together, these moves suggest a broader pattern across the industry, with rising component costs, particularly for memory, forcing multiple brands to rethink their India strategies at the same time.
Meanwhile, leaks suggest the iQOO 16 is still very much alive for the Chinese market, with reports pointing to a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro chipset powering the device. Whether Indian buyers ever get a chance to purchase it remains uncertain. For now, fans of the brand in India will have to wait and watch, hoping that component prices ease enough to bring the iQOO 16, or something like it, back onto the country's launch calendar.
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