Lately we have seen Xiaomi officially sell their phones via their Australian Mi Store. Today we have seen a rumour surface of Xiaomi beginning to sell their phones through Australia’s most well-known phone retailer — JB Hi-Fi.
Over at everyone’s favourite bargain shopper’s website, OzBargain one member posted about a sale on a grey import of the Xiaomi Mi 9T, shipped form Hong Kong. The price and the specs etc were not the big deal about this — that occurred in the comments. According one user, CheapGit, JB Hi-Fi will have the Xiaomi Mi 9T in store next week.
CheapGit went on to further state that in next week’s catalogue we will be seeing:
- Xiaomi Mi 9T — $699
- Xiaomi Mi A3 – $499
- Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 (5G ready) – $1399
- Vivo Y17 – $369
- Vivo S1 – $449
It is interesting to see Vivo making an appearance in Australian bricks and mortar stores too, especially when we have not seen hide nor hair of them in Australia before. They are of course owned by the same company as OPPO and OnePlus, BBK Electronics, and we have seen OPPO on our shores for quite a number of years now which have become well known as great value-for-money phones — expect much of the same from Vivo.
When you head on over to the Vivo Australian webpage, yes there is one, it has the Y17 and the S1 listed as coming soon to JB Hi-Fi. Vivo side of rumour confirmed.
While of course you can find these phones cheaper elsewhere online they are only cheaper (and available) from grey market importers but if you are someone who would rather purchase from local stock, which means local testing and local chargers etc, and of course a local warranty of two years then this may definitely be an option for you.
We will of course wait with bated breath for next week’s JB Hi-Fi catalogue to see more details and whether this “leak” or rumour is in fact true. In the meantime we will be searching and speaking to as many people as possible to track down some confirmation of this speculation — confirmed instore today as one of our former writers and now tipster has walked into a store and purchased a Xiaomi Mi 9T.
It would be great to see two more players in the Australian market and with Xiaomi and Vivo such larger players in the world smartphone market it will certainly give a shakeup to the current players already in this space. It will be interesting to see how the market responds.
Would you pay a small premium to get local stock of an Xiaomi or Vivo phone?
