The iQOO 16 is being tested in India, so a launch looks likely, and the price being floated for it is around ₹1,00,000 ($1,039). That comes from tipster Yogesh Brar, who posted on 2 October that the phone has entered testing in the country.
The Same Tipster Said It Might Skip India
Worth knowing where this is coming from. Brar was the source of the earlier claim that rising memory and component costs could keep the iQOO 16 out of India altogether, so the position has flipped inside a few weeks. iQOO itself has confirmed nothing, and the phone still hasn’t appeared on India’s BIS certification database, which is normally the step that makes a launch real rather than likely. The Indian variant has turned up on Geekbench as Vivo I2607.
₹1 Lakh Would Be A 37% Jump In One Year
This is the part that’ll decide how the phone lands. The iQOO 15 launched in India at ₹72,999 for 12GB/256GB, which was a year ago, and a ₹1,00,000 asking price works out at roughly 37% more for the generation that follows it.
It’s also well above what the phone costs at home. China pricing starts at CNY 5,999, about ₹86,000 or $894, so the predicted Indian figure carries about ₹14,000 of import duty, tax and margin on top. Anyone who bought the 15 at ₹72,999 is being asked to absorb a lot in twelve months, and at a lakh the iQOO is no longer undercutting Samsung and Apple, it’s sitting beside them.
The Specs Are Not The Problem
A 6.85-inch Samsung M16 AMOLED at 1440×3168 and 165Hz, peaking at 10,000 nits. Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 with up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. Three 50MP cameras covering main, 3x periscope and autofocus ultrawide, a 32MP selfie camera, and an 8,400mAh battery taking 100W wired and 40W wireless. Android 17 with OriginOS 7.
When It Might Actually Arrive
iQOO has typically brought its flagships to India about a month after the Chinese launch, and the 16 went on sale there on 29 September. That points to early November, though with no BIS listing and no word from iQOO, the ₹1 lakh number is one tipster’s forecast and nothing firmer than that.
