How high-end smartphone prices are increasing in Vietnam

The Vietnamese smartphone market in late 2025 and early 2026 is the most exciting in the past few years when many new products appear, most of them in the high-end segment. Samsung launched its flagship Galaxy S26 line, Oppo brought back the Find N6 folding model even though it had just sold the Find X9 a few months earlier, and Xiaomi also made a splash with the 17 Ultra in collaboration with Leica. While waiting for the X300 Ultra model to be released, Vivo also upgraded the V series with the V70 for the first time having the option to reach the 20 million VND threshold.

The common point of high-end smartphones launched in recent months is that they have all increased in price compared to the previous generation. Some familiar versions such as iPhone 17 Pro Max and Galaxy S26 Ultra increased by about 10%, while Oppo Find N6 increased by up to 44%.

The starting price will increase sharply in the second half of 2025 and early 2026

Samsung is the first company to sell high-end phones in Vietnam in early 2026. After two years of maintaining a starting price of 34 million VND, the Galaxy S26 Ultra launched in February increased nearly 10% to 37 million VND. With the 1 TB capacity version, the adjustment is larger, from 44.5 million to 52 million VND (16.8%).

Samsung’s move was predicted in advance, in the context of the iPhone 17 generation also raising prices when it went on sale last September. From a starting price of 35 million VND for three years, iPhone 17 Pro Max is listed at 38 million VND. Apple added a 2 TB memory option compared to the 1 TB of the previous model, causing the highest price of the device to increase to 62.5 million VND.

Meanwhile, Xiaomi 17 Ultra, launched at the same time as the S26 Ultra, reached the 40 million VND mark, although the 15 Ultra model launched a year earlier was 35 million VND.

Similarly, Oppo has actively announced high-end smartphones in recent months with Find X9 Pro and Find N6. While Find X9 Pro costs 32 million VND, a “slight increase” of three million VND compared to Find X8 Pro, Find N6 starts at 65 million VND, 44% higher than the 45 million VND of N5.

Vivo started bringing the high-end X series to Vietnam late last year with the X300 Pro model priced at 34.9 million VND, higher than Find X9 Pro and equivalent to Xiaomi 15 Ultra. However, this is not the most expensive version in the company’s product roadmap, because the upcoming X300 Ultra model is likely to reach the 40 million VND mark like the Xiaomi 17 Ultra.

Before X300, V series was the most expensive model sold by Vivo in Vietnam. The product also just got the V70 upgrade last week for 18-20 million VND, two million VND higher than the V60 launched more than half a year ago.

Causes of scarce supply of components and exchange rate fluctuations

According to a representative of a distribution unit, the two main reasons why smartphone prices have fluctuated sharply in recent times are the scarce supply of components and exchange rate fluctuations in Vietnam.

Due to the memory fever in data centers, RAM prices for consumer electronics devices have become expensive – a difficult problem for smartphone manufacturers. AI companies purchase large quantities of memory chips, tightening the supply for smartphones. Meanwhile, the fact that Apple increased RAM to 12 GB or Chinese companies gradually popularized 16 GB RAM to meet the requirements of the AI ​​model running directly on the device (on-device AI) also pushed up the price of high-end smartphones.

Thanks to high output and the ability to coordinate the supply chain, large companies such as Apple and Samsung will be less affected by prices than Chinese companies. In the coming time, analysis companies predict that mid-range phones will also have to adjust prices sharply or have almost no configuration upgrades compared to the 2025 generation.

The second reason is exchange rate fluctuations. Some smartphones’ starting prices abroad remain the same but increase in Vietnam, such as the iPhone 17e priced at 18 million VND, up from 17 million VND of the 16e although the price in the US is still 599 USD.

Chinese company’s “premiumization” strategy

A representative of a retail system said that the sharp increase in Chinese smartphone prices also comes from the “premiumization” strategy of companies. This segment often brings large profit margins while iconic models also help companies increase brand recognition with consumers.

For example, the figure of 65 million VND for Find N6 shows that Oppo no longer wants to stand in the shadow of Apple or Samsung. This price is even higher than Samsung’s most expensive Galaxy Z Fold7 model (60 million) or iPhone 17 Pro Max 2 TB (63 million). The pricing also shows that Oppo wants to affirm the position of the best flat folding screen technology today as well as the Hasselblad brand camera.

The same thing happened with Xiaomi when the 17 Ultra, when the starting price was higher than the Galaxy S26 Ultra and the “high-end phone icon” iPhone 17 Pro Max. Similar to its predecessor, Xiaomi said it does not focus on sales but hopes that factors such as unique photography quality and co-production with Leica will help change users’ perceptions of high-end Xiaomi phones.

Meanwhile, with the price increase and the first option approaching 20 million VND, Vivo shows that the company wants to “erase” the concept of mid-range devices. Experts predict that this will be a method that many Chinese companies will do in the near future to access the segment with higher profit margins to solve the problem of increasing prices due to scarcity of components, while also increasing brand value in the long term.