Turbulent Storefronts: Examining the Price Structure of Iran's Mobile Phone Market/ The Absence Everyone Feels

If you have recently browsed online stores for an ordinary, budget-friendly phone, you have likely noticed a new trend: affordable phones that for years served as the entry point to the mobile world for first-time and low-budget users have undergone a fundamental shift in market positioning. This shift across price ranges is presenting customers with different choices […]

If you have recently visited online stores to buy a normal and economical phone, you have probably come across a new phenomenon: cheap phones, which were the gateway to the mobile world for beginners and low-budget users for years, have undergone a fundamental shift in the market showcase. This shift in price ranges offers different choices to customers.

A review of 96 smartphone models in the country's two largest online stores, namely Digikala and Technolife, including 137 different combinations of memory and RAM (each of which is called "config" in the report), provides a clear picture of the price structure of the Iranian market in October 1405; A picture in which the empty space of budget phones under 20 million Tomans is clearly visible, and at the same time, the price range of 30 to 40 million Tomans has become the new border of being "economical".

In this survey, which was conducted in early October, it shows that, among all the available and expensive configurations, only 9 configurations cost less than 30 million tomans, and not even a single smartphone under 20 million tomans is found in the list. This means that the bottom of the market is practically sitting on a number that was the price of mid-range phones a few years ago.

On the other hand, the center of gravity of the market has moved to the range of 30 to 100 million tomans: 86 configs (equivalent to about 63% of the total supply) are in this range. The two ranges of 30 to 50 and 50 to 75 million tomans each have 34 configurations and together they make up almost half of all phones in the market. The range of 75 to 100 million tomans also has 18 configurations.

The expensive part of the market is not small either: 42 configurations (nearly 31%) have exceeded 100 million tomans, including 23 configurations between 100 and 150 million and 19 configurations above 150 million tomans.

average or median; Which number tells the truth?

The interesting point of the statistical analysis of the market is the distance between the average and the median. The average price of the 137 configurations reviewed is about 7.102 million tomans, but the median (that is, the price of the middle configuration) is only about 68 million tomans. This gap of 35 million tomans has a clear message: very expensive models (especially flagships and iPhones) have artificially raised the average.

To put it simply, half of the phones in the market are less than 68 million Tomans and half are more expensive. A quarter of the configurations are below about 47 million tomans and a quarter are above about 110 million tomans. So if we want to choose a number to describe the "typical phone in the market", the median number is 68 million, not the average of 7.102 million.

map of brands; Each in the same price floor

Brands are not evenly spread across the price spectrum. Based on the average price of the configurations available in Digikala and Technolife, the price status of different smartphone brands in the order of the cheapest brands is as follows:

TCH products, affordable smartphones

TCH brand products, which had previously created a good experience among consumers of digital goods with their smart watches, have also entered the market in the field of smartphones. According to Digikala and Technolife, the prices for the second half of the month show that the price range for the TCH brand is between 32 and 47 million. Based on these data, TCH smartphone model One Lite 64 GB (about 2.33 million), One Lite 128 GB (about 2.35 million), One Pro with 6 GB RAM (about 36.7 million) and One Pro with 8 GB RAM (about 3.44 million) are available in the market. TCH multi-million Toman feature phones are not included in this calculation.

Now the table gives a more complete picture: TCH, with an average price of about 37 million tomans, is practically lower than all smart brands in the showcase and has filled the role that was once held by Redmi and Realme. Realme is in the second place by a distance and plays the role of "budget phone manufacturer" of global brands. Xiaomi, Honor and Samsung are in a relatively close price range, and Apple is practically standing at a separate price level and far from reach.

The noteworthy point in the supply structure is that the variety of brands has a different nature: Samsung has released 35 different configurations with 15 basic models. That is, its diversity comes from multiple versions of RAM and memory of a model. Xiaomi, on the contrary, with 21 basic models and only 30 configurations, is different from the number of independent models. Poco, which is the more economical subcategory of Xiaomi, is the most interesting contradiction in the list with an average of 7.95 million tomans. The brand that is the symbol of the "economical" phone at the global level has become one of the most expensive showcase Android brands in the Iranian market.

The most frequent examples in each range are also telling: Galaxy A07, Galaxy A16, Redmi A3, Realme Note 50, Poco C71 and TCH One Lite and One Pro models are in the range of 30 to 50 million Tomans. In the range of 50 to 75 million, Redmi Note 14, Galaxy A26 and Redmi Note 14S. And in the section above 100 million tomans, Poco X7 Pro (about 109 million), Galaxy A56 (about 112 million), Galaxy S25 FE (about 177 million) and finally iPhones with a price of about 343 million tomans.

The list of 9 configurations under 30 million tomans is practically the market for feature phones and basic smart phones; Phones that are mostly made for calling, texting and light use. The absence of a smartphone under 20 million tomans means "second phone" and "working phone" (two traditional roles of this category) no longer have a place in the official showcase of the market.

Iran's phone market is not diverse in terms of the number of models; What's lacking is an inexpensive selection. The current market structure can be summarized as follows:

The floor of the market has moved: the actual floor of the smartphone has reached from 15-20 million to over 30 million tomans and feature phones have filled the empty space below it.

The center of the market is 68 million tomans and the range of 30 to 100 million tomans has two thirds of the supply.

The brands have divided the price work: TCH and Realme at the bottom of the spectrum, Xiaomi and Samsung and Honor in the middle, and Apple and the flagships at the top of the spectrum.

In such a market, the low-budget buyer practically has three options: get a feature phone and leave the internet and application aside; Choose one of the 9 configurations under 34 million, whose choices are getting less every day; Or, in the range of 34 to 45 million, rely on models like TCH One Lite and One Pro, which try to fill the void created in the market floor with an economical price and internal warranty.