Since April 1^st, GST has been levied causing a price hike on most electronic devices including smartphones. Many brands have their products prices increased due to 6% GST effect. However, VIVO Malaysia had an official announcement that it’s gonna lower price of some models under its brand name, including VIVO Y28, VIVO Y22 and its flagship model VIVO XPlay 3S.

Here’s the price of the aforementioned phones:

VIVO Y28 now selling RM 699（ old RRP: RM 899）

VIVO Y22 now selling RM 599（old RRP: RM 659）

VIVO Xplay3s now selling RM1,699（old RRP: RM1,899）

Prices include GST.

It is worth noticing that the VIVO Xplay3s was the first smartphone to have 2K display launched more than a year ago. We still call this 1-year-old phone a flagship because it features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 Quad Core processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB of storage, 13Mp rear camera with f1/1,8, 5MP front camera and a 3,200 mAh battery. Xplay3s comes with a HiFi audio chipset pre-installed. Compared to the latest mid-range smartphones, the Xplay3s is still on the leader board.

One more brand that prices under GST remains unchanged is OPPO. While other manufacturers do let GST affect their business statement, OPPO has a different approach toward this action by paying its customers’ GST.

To do this, the company absorb the 6% GST into its retail price to ease any price hike affecting its customers. As a result, no changes under GST influence OPPO products.

Current prices are as follow:

Oppo N3 – RM2098
Oppo R5 – RM1798
Oppo Find 7 – RM1798
Oppo Find 7A – RM1398
Oppo N1 Mini – RM1198
Oppo R1L LTE – RM1098
Oppo Mirror 3 – RM898
Oppo Neo 5 LTE – RM598
Oppo Joy – RM358

So far,other brands that have adjusted prices are Apple and Xiaomi. Together with recent price revision, Apple products witness the highest rise. Luckily for Xiaomi phones, only Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G increases in price, the others remain untouched.

What do you think about the strategy of VIVO and OPPO? Should others follow?