NEW DELHI, May 7, 2026, 02:38 IST
Vivo launched the X300 Ultra and X300 FE in India on Wednesday, putting a ₹1,59,999 camera-led flagship at the top of its local smartphone range and opening a fresh fight in the country’s premium Android market. The X300 FE starts at ₹79,999, giving Vivo a lower-priced route into the same ZEISS-branded photography pitch.
The move matters because India’s phone market is shifting upward even as overall demand looks soft. Counterpoint Research Director Tarun Pathak said the premium segment, phones priced above ₹30,000, “emerged as the fastest-growing in 2025,” expanding 11% from a year earlier and reaching 22% of shipments. ETTelecom.com
But the launch lands in a tougher market. CyberMedia Research said India’s smartphone shipments may fall 10% to 12% in 2026, hurt by higher DRAM and NAND prices — memory chips used for phone RAM and storage — and weaker demand in cheaper models. Menka Kumari, a senior analyst at CMR, said the market had entered 2026 under “clear cost pressure.” Business Standard
Vivo is trying to move a brand known for scale into a higher-margin fight. CMR data cited by Business Standard showed Vivo leading India’s smartphone market with a 21% share in the first quarter of 2026, ahead of Samsung at 17%, OPPO at 14% and Xiaomi at 12%.
The X300 Ultra is being sold in a single 16GB RAM and 512GB storage variant at ₹1,59,999, with Eclipse Black and Victory Green colour options. Gadgets 360 said pre-orders are open on Vivo’s site, Amazon and Flipkart, with sales to start May 14 through online and offline retailers.
Vivo’s main pitch is the camera. Its India microsite lists a 14 mm 50-megapixel ultra-wide camera, a 35 mm 200-megapixel camera and an 85 mm 200-megapixel telephoto camera, all with optical image stabilisation, which helps cut blur from hand movement. The phone also supports 200 mm and 400 mm equivalent ZEISS telephoto extenders, add-on lenses aimed at long-distance shooting.
The X300 Ultra also carries Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, a 6.82-inch 2K AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate and a 6,600mAh battery with 100W wired and 40W wireless charging, Gadgets 360 reported. The phone runs OriginOS 6 based on Android 16.
The X300 FE is smaller and cheaper but keeps much of the imaging language. Vivo’s page lists a 50-megapixel ZEISS telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom, a 50-megapixel main camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera and a 50-megapixel front camera; 91mobiles said it has a 6.31-inch LTPO AMOLED display, with LTPO allowing the screen refresh rate to adjust to save power.
The FE costs ₹79,999 for the 12GB/256GB model and ₹89,999 for the 12GB/512GB model, 91mobiles reported. Its sale also starts May 14, and Vivo is selling a telephoto extender kit separately for buyers who want longer-range photography without buying the Ultra.
The competitive target is not subtle. Aaj Tak’s report said Vivo is positioning the new series against iPhone and Samsung premium phones, especially on camera performance, while the X300 Ultra’s price places it firmly in the same top-end buying conversation.
The risk is that the camera hardware may not be enough if buyers delay upgrades or financing costs bite. CMR’s Kumari said the value-for-money segment still faces high price sensitivity, and that same caution could limit how fast consumers move into phones costing ₹80,000 to more than ₹1.5 lakh.
Vivo is also promising longer support, a key issue for premium buyers who keep phones for several years. The Times of India reported that the X300 Ultra and X300 FE will get five years of operating system updates and seven years of security patches, a durability pitch that brings Vivo closer to the premium playbooks used by Apple and Samsung.
