Company official confirms that the Xiaomi 15 series will see a price hike

Xiaomi has officially announced the Xiaomi 15 series, and this lineup will initially bring two new flagship phones: a standard model and a Pro. Both of them will be powered by the newly announced Snapdragon 8 Elite, Qualcomm's 3 nm smartphone chipset with Oryon cores. They will also offer other improved specs, including a display with thin bezels and an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner.

However, these upgrades over the last-gen lineup will come at a cost. The Xiaomi 15 series was rumored to see a price hike multiple times before the lineup was officially announced, and now, Lei Jun, the company's CEO, has confirmed it. In a Weibo post, the company's official notes that the Xiaomi 14 was the very last flagship smartphone from the brand with a starting price of CNY 3,999 (about $562).

Lei Jun adds that the company has invested a lot in R&D this year, and it has to factor in the increasing cost of the phone components. Considering all these, the brand's CEO says that the Xiaomi 15 series will need to see a price increase compared to the last lineup. Lei Jun hasn't specifically mentioned how much the two phones will cost, but a previous report has shed some light on it.

The base Xiaomi 15 will reportedly start at CNY 4,599 (around $646), which would be CNY 600 higher than the predecessor. As for the Pro variant, it's rumored to start at CNY 5,299 (about $745), about CNY 300 more than its predecessor. It's still unclear how much the price increase will be in the global market, but it's worth noting that the company didn't launch the Xiaomi 14 Pro outside China.

Only the non-Pro model made it to the internal market, and it started at €1,000 (around $1,080). With the price hike in place, it's possible that the Xiaomi 15 could start at about $1,300 in the global market.