Alleged European prices for POCO F2 Pro smartphones highlight Xiaomi's controversial pricing policy for foreign markets

A rebranded Redmi K30 Pro is expected to arrive on the European market in the not too distant future where it will be known as the POCO F2 Pro. When the Xiaomi Pocophone F1 was released, many fans were surprised by how the Chinese company managed to bundle so many high-end components into a budget-level smartphone. But it appears Xiaomi no longer wants to be known as the budget king of smartphone OEMs, especially if these supposed POCO F2 Pro prices are genuine.

The alleged leak, shared via Xiaomishka, states a price of €649 (US$711) for a 6 GB RAM + 128 GB storage POCO F2 Pro model and €749 (US$821) for the 8 GB + 256 GB variant. It’s well known that these smartphones are renamed Redmi K30 Pro devices for the European market. So the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor, LPDDR5 RAM, and UFS 3.1 storage might be the same as the Chinese market Redmi K30 Pro smartphones, but the prices are certainly not identical.

Nobody would expect to pay the same amount for the same Xiaomi phone in both China and Europe. Obviously taxes come into play and there are regional pricing variations. But, the 6 GB + 128 GB Redmi K30 Pro is priced at just 2,999 yuan in China (€387, US$425) and the higher-specced model costs 3,699 yuan (€478, US$524). That’s over €260 (~US$285) difference per European POCO F2 Pro phone. Although the original Portuguese source states an additional "private copying levy" in Portugal that might mean the rest of Europe receives the phones at lower price tags, it is still a high mark-up compared to Xiaomi's domestic market prices.

We have already argued that Xiaomi is not just a budget phone specialist anymore, especially when it came to the pricing policy for devices like the Xiaomi Mi 10. That same article pointed out the considerable mark-up Xiaomi was placing on smartphones for foreign markets even when VAT was already taken into account. It appears the POCO F2 Pro will be treated in a similar manner as Xiaomi strives to achieve the same smartphone pricing policies that Samsung and Apple can get away with.