iQoo is a young smartphone brand that joined the bandwagon recently. The company has been making its presence felt thanks to some true value for money devices back home and in the international markets.
In case you find the name iQoo slightly strange, then you’re not alone. Unlike the names of most other Chinese smartphone brands, iQoo is an abbreviation of a collection of English words and it stands for “I Quest On and On.”
The brand looks to primarily target the affordable mid-range price segment; however, it recently introduced its Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 powered flagship device iQoo 9 Pro in different markets. With the introduction of this phone, the company has officially entered the premium flagship club thus taking on the devices from the brands like Samsung, Apple etc.
Let us have a quick look at the type of devices the company makes and before we do this, allow us to take you down the memory lane and see how and when iQoo started and its journey so far.
A brief history of iQoo
iQoo is among the youngest smartphone brands that we’ve come across of late. It was founded in February 2019 and is a sub-brand of yet another leading Chinese smartphone maker Vivo.
With the inception of iQoo, the number of smartphone brands under the umbrella of the Chinese conglomerate, BBK electronics has increased to 5. Apart from iQoo, the brands under BBK Electronics are Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus, and Realme.
Interestingly, while iQoo is a sub-brand of Vivo and despite it being dependent on its parent company for various things, the company debuted in India as an independent brand. Various other sub-brands operating under the BBK Technologies umbrella prefer calling themselves independent brands and iQoo doesn’t seem to be an exception. While it has a dedicated website in India, however, in China iQoo’s phones are sold via Vivo’s official website.
iQoo debuted in India in February 2020 and announced the launch of iQoo 3 which also was one of the first 5G phones to launch in the Indian market – iQoo 3. Since the iQoo has experienced consistent growth and has introduced various devices across the different price ranges.
In a recent interview, Nipun Marya, iQoo’s CEO mentioned that the company is looking to up the ante in the affordable premium segment and wants to increase the market share to 10 per cent from the current 5 per cent by the end of this year. This means we can expect multiple new powerful devices to be introduced but at aggressive price points.
What phones does iQoo make?
Like most Chinese smartphone companies, iQoo rebrands a lot of its phones in different markets. The phones are often launched in China first and later make their way to the international markets where the hardware of these phones gets localized, or they get an entirely new moniker. In some cases, the company decided to do both.
The company has primarily four different lines in China – the U series, the Z series, the Neo series and the Number series. In India though, it only has the Z, the Number and the Neo lineup available to purchase.
Looking at the pricing, the iQoo Z series sits at the bottom and consists of affordable Android phones. It has devices like iQoo Z6, iQoo Z6 5G, iQoo Z6 Pro, iQoo Z3 while the Neo series has the premium mid-range devices like the iQoo Neo 6 and the number series – which sits at the top in the hierarchy – consists of high-end flagship devices.
The iQoo 9 series is the current flagship lineup and the iQoo 9 Pro aka iQoo 9 Legend is the most powerful and costliest device available on the market. The phone has a lot of similarities with the current flagship phones from Vivo. Features like Gimbal camera stabilization, curved display, large fingerprint sensing area etc. are some of the features that are present in the current as well as previous flagship devices of Vivo.
Since the brand targets young customers who prefer high-end configurations at an affordable price point, the brand sells its devices via the online mode primarily. iQoo has also launched a few BMW Motorsport edition devices in collaboration with the German automaker BMW.
iQoo phone availability information
iQoo phones are sold via Vivo's website in China while in India, the company sells its phones and accessories via Amazon India.
iQoo sells its phones via the online channel as it focuses on young enthusiasts who prefer high specced devices at affordable price points. Hence, selling phones online helps keep the prices in check.
Other tech iQoo sells
Apart from smartphones, iQoo has also started selling accessories and is gradually building its close-knit ecosystem. Since these are early days for iQoo there are not too many devices that you can buy as of now, however, this might change soon as well.
As of now, we have an iQoo branded wireless neckband called iQoo wireless Sport, a wireless charging dock and a wireless mobile gamepad that are retailing in India.
