Festive Sale Discounts Failed to Undo Pre-Season Price Hikes on Most Smartphones – Techarc Study Finds

Are the discounts real? A launch-price-anchored analysis of Amazon vs Flipkart smartphone sale pricing The core premise checks out: component and memory-chip shortages did push BAU (business-as-usual) prices above launch price for most models by June 2026. But once the festive sale banners went up, the average phone on both platforms still sold ABOVE its original launch price; the discount mostly clawed back the shortage-driven hike rather than delivering a genuine saving. Flipkart's discounting was meaningfully more convincing than Amazon's. Shortage inflation confirmed. 34 of 50 SKUs (68%) had BAU…