China phone vendor vivo has stepped up to the plate to publicly announce that it will not increase prices of its smartphones despite the implementation of GST that has kicked off today. vivo is the second brand after OPPO to ‘reduce the burden’ of Malaysian consumers.
We may yet see more brands declaring non-increase of prices in the phone segment, to spur sales amidst the uncertainty and cautious outlook due to GST.
vivo is one of the second wave of Chinese brands that has entered the competitive Malaysian mobile phone market. While new, vivo has become popular primarily in the mid-tier, thanks to its well-packaged and attractively priced products like the recently launched vivo X5Max.
The X5Max is a super slim smartphone powered by the 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 with 2GB RAM and 16GB of internal storage. It boasts Hi-Fi standard 2.0 audio, the first smartphone to be built-in with the technology.
Made with a stainless steel body, the X5Max measures just 5.08mm, an extraordinary engineering feat.
The device adopts a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED Full HD display and sports a 13MP rear camera with f/2.0 aperture. The front gets a 5MP wide-angle camera.
The vivo X5Max retails at RM1,799.00.
It looks like brands such as vivo and OPPO are spearheading the non-increase in price in the GST era. Will other brands follow suit?
