There is a new player in the gaming smartphone segment and this player is an aggressive competitor. Redmi released its first-ever gaming smartphone, the Redmi K40 gaming version a few days ago. After a few days in the market, the company seems to know why gaming phones are not popular. According to Lu Weibing, the general manager of the Redmi brand, the company is in the gaming field to popularize it.
According to him, gaming smartphones are not popular because they are too expensive. He believes that the current sales of gaming smartphones is not large because of the price threshold. Furthermore, he claims that there is no pseudo-demand for gaming smartphones, just high prices. He said
“Today, the cost of a processor alone is $10 and the memory or screen is even worse. There is also the marketing cost. When we add these costs together, it will be very difficult to have cheap gaming smartphones. This way, the popularization of gaming smartphones becomes very difficult”
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Lu Weibing believes that gaming mobile phone manufacturers have problems in their direction and thinking. “The original cost is very expensive, and everyone wanted to sell for more money. This made the product deviate from the user’s needs, so we now have to go back and pull it back”. Redmi claims that it will sell no less than 1.7 million Redmi K40 gaming version this year. Recall that the total sales of gaming smartphones from all manufacturers in China is about 1.7 million.
Why did Redmi join the gaming market?
Talking about the reasons for entering the gaming market, Lu Weibing explained that first, Redmi users are getting younger, especially users of the K series. The core of these users are in their 20s and they spend more time playing games.
Secondly, Redmi has been observing and researching the gaming phone category for some time. Data shows that the sale of gaming phones in the Chinese market will only be 1.6 – 1.7 million units in 2020. In addition, the price of gaming phones will become more expensive.
The Redmi K40 gaming version comes with a 1999 yuan ($309) starting price. This makes it the cheapest gaming smartphone on the market. In addition to price, Lu Weibing is also trying to solve several major pain points of current gaming phones. This smartphone is only 8.3 mm thick and weighs just 205g. It defeats the usual trend for gaming smartphones to be heavy and thick.
