Redmi K100 leak points to a 54% price hike — the budget flagship may be over
The Redmi K100 series is shaping up to be one of the most expensive phones Redmi has ever made. A leak from reliable Chinese tipster Digital Chat Station, reported by Gizmochina, puts the base K100 (12GB/256GB) at around 4,000 CNY — roughly $585. Its predecessor, the K90, launched at 2,599 CNY (about $380). That's a 54% jump, and it signals something bigger than standard inflation.
The hardware case
Redmi isn't raising prices for nothing. The standard K100 is expected to run the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 — still a top-tier chip, but the previous generation. The K100 Pro Max steps up to the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro, built on TSMC's 2nm process, and is rumored to cost around 5,000 CNY (approximately $725–730). Manufacturing a single 2nm wafer from TSMC runs close to $30,000, per WCCFtech — those costs roll downhill fast. An ongoing RAM shortage, partly driven by AI data center demand, is pushing memory prices up at the same time, notes GSMArena.
What it means outside China
A China launch is expected in October 2026. If Redmi follows the same pattern as the K90, the K100 will arrive internationally as the Poco F9 Pro and Poco F9 Ultra sometime in Q1 2027 — though US and UK distribution details aren't confirmed yet.
At $585, the base K100 lands squarely in the territory currently held by the Galaxy S26 and OnePlus 16. That's no longer the budget-flagship lane — it's the mid-premium one. The K100 Pro Max at $725 gets uncomfortably close to Xiaomi's own mainline flagships, raising real questions about how the sub-brand carves out its identity going forward.
The bigger picture
The K100 isn't an outlier. Every major chipmaker moving to 2nm in 2026 faces the same cost structure. Apple, Qualcomm, and MediaTek are all dealing with it, and consumers will feel it across Android and iPhone alike. Redmi is just making the shift unusually visible by jumping from an explicitly affordable price point in a single generation.
If the $585 launch price holds, the K100 will still offer strong specs for the money — but the days of flagship performance for $380 appear to be gone.
