China’s smartphone market just got more expensive, with Huawei, Xiaomi and Honor raising prices on popular phones by as much as 1,000 yuan, or about $150, as soaring memory costs squeeze manufacturers.
The three brands increased prices across multiple models in China on Sept. 1, affecting devices ranging from mid-range phones to premium flagships. Huawei’s Mate 80 Pro and Pro Max received some of the largest increases, while Xiaomi and Honor also raised prices across several product lines.
Behind those increases is a much bigger component-cost problem. The procurement cost of one 12GB+256GB memory configuration has reportedly climbed from about 500 yuan ($74) a year ago to 2,200 yuan ($327), putting phone makers in an uncomfortable position: absorb the increase, charge buyers more, or rethink how their devices are configured and positioned.
Price changes
Huawei made some of the biggest increases. The Mate 80 rose by 800 yuan ($119) across storage configurations, while the Mate 80 Pro and Mate 80 Pro Max jumped 1,000 yuan (~$150). That puts the 16GB+1TB Mate 80 Pro Max at 9,999 yuan, just below the 10,000-yuan threshold.
Huawei’s Enjoy 90 Pro Max also became 200 yuan more expensive, with its 128GB version rising from 1,699 yuan ($253) to 1,899 yuan ($283), according to IT Home.
Xiaomi raised the Xiaomi 17 by 300 yuan (~$45) to 5,099 yuan (~$757), while the 17 Pro climbed to 5,699 yuan (~$848) and the 17 Pro Max to 6,999 yuan ($1,041). The company also increased prices for selected Redmi K90 and Turbo 5 Max models.
Honor raised the Power 2 by 500 to 600 yuan and increased Magic 8 prices by 300 to 500 yuan.
Customer service representatives confirmed the increases, according to BigGo Finance. Huawei cited higher costs for key components, Xiaomi pointed to rising procurement costs, and Honor said it adjusted pricing based on market conditions.
Memory is the pressure point
The biggest problem is sitting inside the phones. BigGo Finance reported that the procurement cost of a 12GB+256GB memory combination has climbed from about 500 yuan ($74) a year ago to 2,200 yuan ($327), a 340% increase. Seoul Economic Daily, citing Counterpoint Research, reported that smartphone memory prices rose more than 80% quarter over quarter in the second quarter.
AI infrastructure demand is adding to the pressure. Data centers are consuming growing volumes of memory and storage components, contributing to tighter supply and higher costs for consumer-electronics manufacturers.
Memory isn’t the only component getting more expensive. Qualcomm is adding another layer of pressure. Its planned September chip price increases, expected to reach double-digit percentages, leave manufacturers with fewer options to absorb higher component costs.
Xiaomi President Lu Weibing has warned that memory costs are likely to remain elevated even if the pace of increases slows later this year.
The smartphone market is being repriced
This is more than a temporary price bump. It could change how Chinese phone makers position their products.
With consumers already facing weaker replacement demand, manufacturers cannot simply raise prices indefinitely without risking sales. Yet absorbing the full increase would squeeze margins. The more practical response may be to push customers toward higher-priced phones where component costs represent a smaller percentage of the selling price.
Xiaomi’s numbers offer a glimpse of that strategy. Its second-quarter smartphone average selling price reached 1,351 yuan ($201), up 25.9% year over year, while phones priced at 3,000 yuan ($446) or more accounted for 32.1% of mainland China shipments, according to BigGo Finance.
That creates a strange market dynamic: AI is driving demand for memory, but the resulting shortage is making AI-era smartphones more expensive even as consumers become more cautious.
What consumers should expect
For buyers, the immediate takeaway is that higher component costs may make deep smartphone discounts less predictable, particularly on models with larger memory and storage configurations. How long that lasts will depend largely on whether memory supply loosens — and how much of any eventual cost relief manufacturers choose to pass back to consumers.
The risk for phone makers is that higher prices can protect profitability, but they can also slow already-weak demand. If memory prices eventually decline, manufacturers may have little incentive to return phones to their previous price points, particularly if they can use the disruption to establish a more premium market position.
Other news: Huawei has bid to supply more than 2,000 Ascend AI chips for an Egyptian government data center project, as the U.S. explores a rival proposal involving Nvidia, AMD, and Microsoft.