Realme is officially increasing the retail prices of its entire Realme 16 smartphone lineup. Effecting today, i.e., May 18, 2026, buyers will have to shell out significantly more money buy these popular 5G mid-range smartphones, and the challenges in the current tech landscape are to be blamed.
Realme 16 Series Prices Jump by up to Rs 3,000 in India
The news was brought to light by tipster Abhishek Yadav on X, who shared what appears to be an internal document for retailers from Realme. The document contains a list of all the phones and their storage variants, including the old and new minimum billing prices.
The document also starts off addressing the reasons for the price hike, which are "unavoidable increase in memory, chipset and overall smartphone ecosystem costs".
That said, the pricing hike impacts three phones in the lineup – Realme 16 5G, Realme 16 Pro 5G and Realme 16 Pro+ 5G. The exact increase varies depending on the specific model and storage configurations.
- Realme 16 5G gets a Rs 2,000 price increase for the 8 GB + 128 GB model and a Rs 3,000 hike for the 8 GB + 256 GB and 12 GB + 256 GB variants, bringing their costs up to Rs 33,999, Rs 36,999 and Rs 39,999, respectively.
- Realme 16 Pro 5G has received a flat Rs 1,000 increase for both 8 GB + 256 GB and 12 GB + 256 GB versions, bringing their new prices to Rs 39,999 and Rs 42,999, respectively.
- Realme 16 Pro+ 5G gets a Rs 2,000 hike for the 8 GB + 128 GB and 8 GB + 256 GB variants, whereas the 12 GB + 256 GB version receives a Rs 3,000 increase, pushing the prices up to Rs 46,999, Rs 48,999 and Rs 52,999, respectively.
The price increase is apparently already live at the moment on Flipkart, where the Realme 16 5G's 12 GB + 256 GB variant is now priced at the revised Rs 39,999. Realme did say these revised prices are taking effect immediately across channels, so buyers looking to pick up the phone will need to adjust their budgets accordingly.
The trend of rising smartphone costs continues, and Realme isn't the only one following. The OnePlus 15R also became a victim of its second price increase as it now costs Rs 54,999, Rs 7,000 more than what it launched for initially. As experts predict that memory shortage is projected to last till 2028, smartphones will get more expensive by the day, and there's really nothing we can do about it.
