New phones from Apple, Samsung, Vivo, Xiaomi, Tecno, Honor and others reached the Bangladeshi market over the past month, and buyer interest has risen with them. A market survey across Dhaka and Chattogram puts the range from ৳9,999 for a Symphony Max 30 to ৳3,63,000 for the foldable iPhone Duo.
The iPhone 18 Pro, the iPhone 18 Pro Max and the iPhone Duo are now available. Buyers are reported to be looking at both the new iPhones and at better phones at lower prices.
The word the listing does not explain
Every price in the survey is marked either official or unofficial, and the difference is never defined. For a buyer it is the single most consequential thing on the page.
An official phone is imported through the formal channel with duty paid, comes with a manufacturer warranty valid in Bangladesh, and has an IMEI registered in the national database. An unofficial phone has come in outside that channel. It is cheaper for exactly that reason.
Look at what that does to the same device. The Galaxy S26 appears at ৳1,28,499 official and ৳85,000 unofficial — a gap of more than forty thousand taka on one handset. The Honor 600S is ৳45,990 official against ৳39,000 unofficial.
What the cheaper number costs you
The gap is not a discount. It is the price of the protections you are giving up.
An unofficial handset generally has no warranty a local service centre will honour. If the screen fails in month four you are paying for the repair. Software updates may be region-locked. And an unregistered IMEI is the live risk: the national registration regime exists, and a handset outside it can be barred from the network.
For a ৳20,000 phone a buyer might reasonably take that bet. On a ৳3,63,000 foldable, saving a fraction by buying outside the official channel means carrying the full replacement cost yourself on the most fragile category of phone made.
What the survey does not contain
Worth stating plainly: there are no sales figures, no market share and no survey firm behind this. It is a price list compiled by a reporter visiting markets — including the Akhtaruzzaman Centre in Agrabad, Chattogram — not a measurement of what people actually bought.
So "buyer interest has risen" is an impression from shop floors, not a statistic. It is still useful, because a price list from real counters is harder to argue with than a manufacturer's recommended price.
How to read a list like this
Three things make it usable. Check which of the two prices you are being quoted, and get the answer in writing. Ask for the IMEI and whether it is registered. And compare the official price against the official price of a rival, not against an unofficial one — otherwise you are comparing a warranty with the absence of one and calling it a saving.
The arithmetic worth doing
Take the gap and compare it with one screen repair. On the Galaxy S26 the difference is more than ৳43,000; a screen replacement on a flagship will not cost that. On that handset the unofficial route can still make sense if you accept the IMEI risk.
On a ৳3,63,000 foldable the sum runs the other way. Foldables fail at the hinge and the inner display, both of which are the most expensive parts to replace, and both of which a grey-market seller will not cover. Here the official price is not a premium — it is insurance priced into the handset.
