A tiny memory stick has bent the backs of mobile phone manufacturers.

In the context of rising storage prices, the world's three major DRAM memory manufacturers, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology, have stopped quoting prices to downstream manufacturers. The market price changes "once a day or even once an hour." All mobile phone manufacturers are "enduring" this situation, without exception.

In previous springs, the "gunpowder smell" in the mobile phone industry would focus on the parameter comparisons of new models from various brands. However, this year, it is the price adjustment notices that have attracted attention. As of March 20th, brands such as OPPO, vivo, and iQOO have all announced price increases.

"Mi fans" left messages on the Weibo of Lu Weibing, a partner of Xiaomi Group, asking: Will the price of Redmi K90 increase? Lu Weibing expressed understanding of the price increases of competing brands, saying "everyone is having a hard time" and that "we are also struggling painfully."

Storage chips (including DRAM memory and NAND flash) are the core components of mobile phones, responsible for storing data and running programs. The processor, storage chips, screen, and lens are regarded as the four major components of a mobile phone. Among them, the cost of storage accounts for nearly 15% of the BOM (Bill of Materials) of a smartphone.

Mobile phone manufacturers have been "enduring" for at least three quarters. After the second quarter of 2025, the global storage chip prices began to skyrocket. Taking Samsung's LPDDR4X memory as an example, it was $6 per chip in March 2025. Just half a year later, it rose to $25 per chip. In 2026, the upward trend became even more fierce. Based on the contract price of $28.5 per chip on January 30th this year, the spot price has increased by nearly 400% in less than two months.

In the past two years, the upstream and downstream of AI have launched a computing power arms race, regarding storage chips as strategic materials, which has led to a sharp increase in the demand for HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) and DDR5. The storage manufacturers have allocated most of their production capacity to high - priced products, while the production capacity of ordinary consumer - grade memory (DDR4) and flash memory has been severely squeezed, directly causing shortages and price increases across all product categories.

Reporters from Economic Observer learned that in the context of rising storage prices, the world's three major DRAM memory manufacturers, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology, have stopped quoting prices to downstream manufacturers. The market price changes "once a day or even once an hour." Some storage chip agents are afraid of losing money and dare not quote prices to customers.

"This year, all companies have to tighten their belts," a middle - level manager of a domestic mobile phone manufacturer told Economic Observer. In this shock caused by the imbalance between supply and demand of upstream storage chips, mobile phone manufacturers are being forced to choose between maintaining market share at a loss and raising prices and sacrificing the market.

"Sell one, lose one" without price increase

At the beginning of March, at the Mobile World Congress, Lu Weibing revealed that the memory price quote in the first quarter of 2026 was about four times that of the same period in 2025. The cost of a 12GB + 256GB memory combination has soared from a low of more than $30 to $120 - $130.

Zhang Qian, the product manager of a domestic niche mobile phone brand, revealed that large - scale mobile phone manufacturers can lock in orders from memory manufacturers. Small manufacturers without supply - chain bargaining power may not choose original manufacturers but flexibly source from certain agent channels to ensure storage supply.

On March 18th, in a communication group for the supply and demand of computing power GPU graphics cards with hundreds of people, starting from 8 a.m., there were price quotes or requests for goods every 10 - 20 minutes. Some people in the AI server accessory business were urgently purchasing storage products from the three major original manufacturers at high prices. Some agents in Shenzhen reported the quantity of their in - stock storage products and clearly stated the prices including tax. "SK Hynix memory sticks, disassembled in - stock products, with a beautiful price, from 2019. Those who can accept it, come," such shouts happen every day.

In this market situation, the aforementioned middle - level manager of a mobile phone manufacturer said that mobile phone manufacturers have two options: either actively subsidize and continue to maintain market share at a huge loss, or give up sales volume and market share for a period of time and not care whether the products can be sold.

In mid - March, many mobile phone brands have made their choices: OPPO, vivo, etc. have all adjusted prices to relieve pressure. When Honor launched its folding - screen flagship Magic V6, it chose not to increase the price of the small - memory version models and only increased the price of the large - memory version models by about 10% compared with the previous generation.

A person from Honor's marketing department explained that although there are factors of a sharp rise in the supply chain, the starting price of the new product was set when it was planned to be on par with the previous - generation flagship. As a result, "selling one unit means losing money on one unit."

Honor took a combined approach: not increasing the price of the basic version to a certain extent to stabilize the product's basic customer base and avoid the loss of users due to price adjustments. And increasing the price of the top - end version to offset the manufacturer's cost and profit pressure.

On the evening of March 17th, Mr. Liu, a core channel partner of Honor, received a price adjustment notice from the Honor brand. The channel side will implement the new prices synchronously starting from March 18th. The official online flagship store and offline stores of Honor will be uniformly adjusted, covering the main models of the digital series, X series, and Play series. The prices of mid - range models will increase by $300 - $500, and the price increases of some flagship and large - memory version models will be even higher.

Huawei has not taken any price - increasing actions for the time being. However, Mr. Wang, a Huawei channel partner, revealed that Huawei has cancelled the SO incentive on the channel side. SO is the abbreviation of Sell out, usually referring to the user activation volume. According to Economic Observer, in order to stimulate the enthusiasm of the sales channels, Huawei would give relevant SO incentives to channel partners. For example, channel partners could get a cash incentive of $300 - $500 for selling a flagship mobile phone.

"No company dares to do business at a loss these days," a person in the mobile phone industry pointed out. Huawei's decision not to follow the price increase for now is related to its relatively flexible and rational pricing system. Low - end mobile phone brand manufacturers are the most affected by the supply - chain price increase.

Thousand - yuan mobile phones are facing a survival line

The rising storage prices have directly led to a sharp increase in the cost proportion of storage in the mobile phone BOM (Bill of Materials). High - end models with higher profit margins can relatively easily absorb the impact. However, in the low - end mobile phone market, for a mobile phone with an original total selling price of $40, the storage cost has risen from a few dollars to over $20, and consumers are not willing to pay.

Transsion has long dominated emerging markets such as Africa and Southeast Asia with limited per - capita purchasing power. A cost fluctuation of one dollar is enough to influence consumers' decisions. The price of upstream storage chips has quadrupled within a quarter, and Transsion is facing a life - and - death proposition: if it does not increase the price, the company will go bankrupt.

As a giant relying on mid - and low - end models for large - scale sales, Transsion was the first to be affected by the rising storage prices. In the third quarter of 2025, Transsion's revenue increased but its profit did not. Its net profit dropped by 11%. In 2025, its annual performance saw a halving of net profit for the first time since its listing, and its mobile phone market share dropped from the fourth in the world to the "others" category.

Data from CFM Flash Memory Market shows that since the beginning of 2026, many mobile phone brands have been forced to increase the prices of their new models, and some manufacturers have even suspended their low - end product lines. At the beginning of January this year, Wan Zhiqiang, the CMO of Xingji Meizu Group's China region, announced that the launch plan of the new Meizu 22 Air, which had been in preparation for nearly a year, was cancelled due to the significant increase in memory prices.

The overall design cost of the Meizu 22 Air is higher than that of the previous - generation product. The spot market price of storage soared by 150% in the fourth quarter of 2025. This mid - range product was difficult to maintain its original pricing strategy.

At that time, Wan Zhiqiang also released a piece of news that excited "Meizu fans." The Meizu 23, featuring the narrowest bezel in history, would make its debut in mid - 2026. On February 27th, Xingji Meizu issued a strategic transformation announcement, stating that it would suspend the self - developed hardware projects of new domestic mobile phones. "The continuous skyrocketing of memory prices has made the normal commercialization of the next new products impossible."

Two days after the announcement was issued, Wan Zhiqiang said in a live - stream that the Meizu 23 had been developed but would not be launched on the market. He told Economic Observer that the fate of Meizu mobile phones is deeply affected by the current industrial environment. The company is still in a state of hardware loss under the pressure of high R & D investment. Facing the long - term rising cycle of storage prices, it has to "cut off its wrist" and transform from a hardware manufacturer to a software ecosystem service provider.

Large - scale mobile phone manufacturers with tens of millions of shipments can usually purchase from upstream suppliers at the agreed price and have a certain say in the face of tight memory supply. However, small manufacturers like Meizu can only settle accounts at the market price of memory when the mobile phones are actually sold, which is tantamount to a huge loss.

In 2026, not only small manufacturers like Meizu but also the thousand - yuan mobile phone market has reached a turning point. A middle - level manager of the aforementioned large mobile phone manufacturer calculated for the reporter: In the past, for a mobile phone priced at about a thousand yuan, the storage cost was two or three hundred yuan. But now, the price of the same memory combination has risen to five or six hundred yuan, almost doubling.

"If the product does not increase in price, there won't be enough money to buy other parts," the person said. The price increase of mobile phones is an inevitable trend. After seeing Transsion's decision to adopt different price - increasing strategies in different markets, he wondered if anyone would buy a mobile phone with the configuration of a hundred - yuan phone at the price of a thousand - yuan phone.

Wu Zihao, the CEO of Ronghe Semiconductor Consulting Company, pointed out that the increase in storage cost of hundreds of yuan has forced hundred - yuan mobile phones to enter the thousand - yuan price range. The models originally in the thousand - yuan price range need to be raised to about $1500 to survive.

There is a buffer period between the increase in storage prices and its impact on the consumer end. Taking Xiaomi as an example, it has a large volume of low - end mobile phone shipments. After the storage price increase wave started in Q2 2025, there was no fluctuation in Xiaomi's quarterly financial report. Wu Zihao analyzed that it is very common for manufacturers to hoard storage in the short term during the long - term storage price increase cycle, but "at most for one or two quarters."

Zhang Qian told the reporter that mobile phone manufacturers will conduct business calculations internally. For example, for every $10 increase in memory price, how many percentage points will the net profit drop? Once the storage price increases to a certain level, the product will need to exceed the price limit set at the time of project planning.

The global consulting firm Counterpoint also issued a warning in its "Storage Price Tracking Report" that the soaring storage prices are causing a change in the BOM structure of smartphones. For low - end mobile phones with a wholesale price below $200, the total BOM cost in the first quarter of 2026 increased by 25% quarter - on - quarter, and the storage cost will account for as much as 43% of the total BOM.

Counterpoint senior analyst Bai Shenghao predicted that the retail price of low - end mobile phones will increase by about $30 in 2026, and the cost pressure of some high - end flagship phones will be passed on to consumers, resulting in a retail price increase of $150 - $200.

Regarding the smartphone market in 2026, Bai Shenghao analyzed that brands relying on entry - level models to expand market share may face the risk of short - term losses. "The conventional cost - reduction measures of mobile phone manufacturers may be a drop in the bucket."

It will last for two or three years

Wu Zihao pointed out that the storage chip industry has a cyclical characteristic of "not making a deal for three years, but making enough for three years once a deal is made." However, he predicted that this wave of storage price increases will last for two or three years or even longer, and the peak will appear around mid - year or Q3 this year. However, even if the price drops in 2027, it will still remain at a relatively high level. Lu Weibing also predicted that the upward trend of memory prices will continue until 2027.

Based on the public information about the production expansion of the three major DRAM memory manufacturers from 2025 to 2027, Wu Zihao analyzed that Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology were all cutting DDR4 production capacity in 2025 and fully transitioning to DDR5. The window period for this production capacity conversion is 10 - 14 months.

As early as the second - quarter financial report disclosure in 2023, Micron Technology, a storage chip giant, mentioned that AI has led to a continuous increase in intelligent demand. The demand for DRAM in AI servers is 6 - 8 times that of ordinary servers, and the demand for NAND Flash is 3 times that of ordinary servers. At that time, the CEO of Micron Technology predicted that the market scale of the storage chip industry would reach a record high in 2025. In October 2025, another giant, SK Hynix, said that the production capacity of its three major product lines, DRAM, NAND Flash, and HBM, was fully booked in 2026. At the same time, the HBM production capacity of Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology was also sold out.

The three major original manufacturers are expanding production, but the balance of resources has shifted. The surge in AI demand has further squeezed the production capacity for consumer electronics.

The tight supply and demand of storage are also related to the production rhythm of storage manufacturers themselves. Wu Zihao added that the previous storage cycle shock has made the production - expansion style of the three major original manufacturers relatively conservative. Even at the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026 when the price increase was fierce and the industrial supply and demand were seriously imbalanced, the three major original manufacturers still maintained conservative production expansion, perhaps aiming to maintain the long - term high price of DRAM.

Mobile phone manufacturers with different production and shipment scales have very different bargaining power with the upstream supply chain. "The manufacturing industry pays more attention to volume," said Zhang Qian, who has worked in a domestic large - scale mobile phone manufacturer for many years. Now in a small - scale brand manufacturer, he can no longer, as in the past, agree on the contract price and purchase volume of memory with upstream suppliers through strategic agreements and framework agreements. Even if the manufacturer he works for has sufficient funds, it cannot pay some fees in advance to lock in orders.

"Locking in orders is not foolproof," Zhang Qian said. The storage price increase may continue until the end of 2027. Not only mobile phone manufacturers but also terminal manufacturers of computers, home appliances, and even smart glasses are eyeing the three major original manufacturers. Large computing power and AI companies such as Nvidia and Google are trying to monopolize the production capacity of these manufacturers. When the price increase is too high, even if mobile phone manufacturers have paid the down payment for order locking, they still cannot stop the original manufacturers from breaching the contract and not delivering products to them.

Wu Zihao also mentioned a phenomenon. Large manufacturers such as Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo are large - scale purchasers of Samsung Electronics' storage products and will sign long - term agreements. However, during this price - increase cycle, the original manufacturers have also reduced the supply to them. They may change the price quotes that were valid for half a year or a quarter in the past to weekly quotes or daily price updates. In extreme cases, they may even stop quoting prices and overturn the original agreements and sign new price - increase contracts.

"It takes several quarters for the expansion of storage production capacity to be converted into actual output, and it is expected that the impact will continue until the second half of 2027," said Wang Yang, the chief analyst at Counterpoint. Due to the faster - than - expected shrinkage of the supply of DDR4 by the original manufacturers, mobile phone manufacturers are forced to postpone product launches, streamline product lines, or sacrifice specification parameters.

The aforementioned middle - level manager of a large mobile phone manufacturer revealed