The biggest price increase in five years: Mobile phone manufacturers launch a profit defense war

The mobile phone market, already in a downward cycle, has witnessed new changes.

In March 2026, the Chinese mobile phone market experienced the largest and most widespread price increase in nearly five years. Mainstream brands such as OPPO, vivo, and Honor have successively adjusted their prices, with the prices of mid - and low - end models rising by 300 - 500 yuan. The market research firm Counterpoint Research predicts that after March, the average price of new mobile phones in the Chinese market will increase by 15% - 25% compared to models in the same price range in 2025.

Nowadays, mobile phones are already closely integrated with people's lives. They serve as payment tools, work terminals, and social portals, and are even called "another organ of the human body." When the price of such a product, which is closely related to ordinary people's lives, increases, it is bound to receive a strong market response. Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi, recently publicly responded, saying, "We will try various methods to minimize the difficulty for consumers to accept the price increase."

In fact, with the extension of consumers' mobile phone replacement cycle, the mobile phone industry has been in a downward cycle since 2016. In 2025, the sales volume fell into the negative growth range again to 280 million units. In nine years, the sales volume almost halved.

The wave of mobile phone price increases is bound to affect consumers' decision - making. A mobile phone dealer told Tech Planet that after this round of price increases, some price - sensitive customers directly chose to repair their old phones and continue using them. Meizu stated in an announcement at the end of February that "the continuous sky - rocketing price of memory has made the normal commercialization of the next new product impossible," so it suspended the self - developed hardware project of new domestic mobile phones.

But this is just the beginning. Many industry insiders believe that this is an "unprecedented" long - cycle market trend, which is expected to last for 2 - 3 years. The challenges have just begun.

Who Bears the Greatest Pressure in the Biggest Price Increase in Five Years?

On March 10th, OPPO took the lead in firing the "first shot" of the collective price increase of domestic mobile phones in the form of an official announcement. The products with price increases include the already - released OPPO A series, K series, and OnePlus, excluding the OPPO Find series, Reno series, and OPPO Pad series.

OPPO has absolute dominance in the mid - and low - end markets. According to RD's observation and statistics, in 2025, OPPO's sales volume accounted for more than 50% in the price range of 0 - 2000 yuan and as high as 70.9% in the price range of 0 - 3000 yuan.

The A series and K series, which have increased in price this time, happen to cover the 0 - 3000 yuan price range, which means that many of OPPO's product lines will be directly affected. A dealer said that OPPO may bear the greatest pressure this time because OPPO's flagship phones have not performed as expected for two consecutive years, resulting in insignificant achievements in its high - end market penetration.

Following OPPO is vivo. However, unlike OPPO, which announced the price increase six days in advance, vivo only gave consumers 48 hours' notice. Currently, the prices of the vivo X300 series, IQOO digital series, iQOO Neo series, and iQOO Z series have all increased to varying degrees. Among them, the IQOO Neo11 has the highest price increase in this round, with a 700 - yuan increase for the 16 + 512GB model.

This is another wave of collective price increases for domestic mobile phone manufacturers after the 5G and high - end trends in 2020. In 2020, when Xiaomi 10 was released, it directly put forward the slogan of "the last flagship phone." Subsequently, for models in the same price range, the starting memory capacity continued to decrease, and other manufacturers followed suit.

Different from 2020, which was essentially a structural price increase due to the switch from 4G to 5G and was more limited to high - end phones, this price increase is larger in both amplitude and scope. At that time, the data provided by the research firm Counterpoint Research showed that the average price in the domestic market increased by 13% (about 2111 yuan), while this time it is 15% - 25%, and it is not limited to the mid - and low - end.

When Tech Planet visited mobile phone stores in Beijing on March 19th, it was found that in some offline channels, the prices of some mobile phones had not increased. For example, in the vivo store in JD Mall, the prices of mobile phones remained unchanged. However, the price of OnePlus phones, which originally had relatively thin profit margins, has increased. For example, the price of the lowest - configuration OnePlus Turbo 6V, which was recently released, has increased by 200 yuan.

A clerk at an Apple store told Tech Planet that they have not received any news about a price increase yet, but the situation is uncertain in the future. Xiaomi has also not officially increased its prices. When responding to users' inquiries about price increases on Weibo, Lu Weibing, a partner of Xiaomi Group, said that it was very painful to resist. However, many industry insiders analyzed that "Xiaomi is just waiting and watching, and it will definitely increase prices."

Another mobile phone dealer from Shanxi said that although most companies have not directly increased the prices of old models, the prices of new models have increased, and there is also a shortage of goods. "The models launched in January have lower configurations and higher prices than the old models. They were discontinued before they even started selling, and replacement models are about to be launched. The configuration is the same, but the price is directly increased by 200 - 300 yuan. This is still for budget phones."

Single - Phone Price Increase, but No Market at the Set Price

In fact, the news of the price increase has been spreading since before the Spring Festival. A dealer said that he received news that the price of a certain model had increased before the Spring Festival, and this current wave is an official price increase by collective manufacturers.

In order to counter the price increase wave, many dealers started stockpiling goods before the Spring Festival. A county - level dealer said that he stockpiled more than 400 vivo Y500T phones before the Spring Festival. Now, many dealers said that there is no stock of vivo Y500T phones left.

A dealer from Shandong said that the goods he stocked before the Spring Festival were not enough when the factory had not even started production after the Spring Festival, and the supply in the ordering system could not keep up. The price is changing every day, just like the price of gold last year. You can sell a phone for 1500 yuan today, but it will cost 1600 yuan to restock tomorrow. As a retailer in a small county, the inventory was originally not large. By the time they realized the price increase, there was no stock left to buy.

The shortage is not a problem with a single model. A county - level dealer told Tech Planet that OPPO, vivo, and Honor are basically out of stock now, especially vivo and Honor, which are almost completely out of stock. There are occasionally two or three units of some OPPO models available on the channels of China Mobile and China Unicom.

A dealer from Shanxi was not surprised by this. He told Tech Planet that this is actually because the manufacturers have sealed their inventories. Sealing the inventory means that they are going to stop producing the existing models and then increase the prices uniformly. Now, it is impossible to buy low - end models priced at 1500 yuan.

Although the price of a single phone has increased, the overall profit of dealers has not increased. "The cost has also increased. Before the price increase, a 3599 - yuan phone could be bought for 3099 yuan after subsidies. Now, after the price increase to more than 4000 yuan, it still costs more than 3500 yuan after national subsidies. Consumers' purchasing power has declined significantly," the above - mentioned Shanxi dealer added. He also said that overall, the sales volume has declined, and the profit of the stores has also decreased.

In order to stimulate consumption, a dealer said that they have to give customers some gifts now, which has reduced the profit of a phone originally priced at around 1500 yuan from 350 yuan to 230 yuan.

In fact, at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, when mobile phone manufacturers intensively launched new models to target the Spring Festival sales season, the prices of most models with the same memory configuration had already increased. The price increase is bound to lead to a decline in sales volume, so mobile phone manufacturers have also adjusted their shipment volumes for 2026.

Among them, Xiaomi and OPPO have reduced their shipment volumes by more than 20%, vivo by nearly 15%, and Transsion to less than 70 million units. The models with reduced shipments by each company mainly focus on mid - and low - end and overseas products. The Counterpoint report pointed out that affected by the price increase of memory chips, the sales volume of domestic mobile phones in the first nine weeks of 2026 decreased by 4% year - on - year.

Dealers have not been able to "make more money by stockpiling goods." Consumers of mid - and low - end models are originally price - sensitive. A price increase of 300 - 500 yuan for a phone priced at around 3000 yuan exceeds consumers' affordability. Many people hold the attitude of "waiting for the price to drop" and temporarily give up buying new phones.

Many mobile phone wholesalers said that mobile phones are not selling well either online or offline, and there is a situation of high prices but no market demand. Another dealer said that there are more people coming to the store to repair their phones than to buy new ones.

Disappearance of Budget Phones, Will the Price Increase Wave Last for 3 Years?

Behind the price increase is the fact that the explosive growth of AI has squeezed the production capacity of consumer - grade electronic products such as mobile phones.

In 2025, the memory chip industry witnessed a wave of price increases. Among them, the price of LPDDR4X, commonly used in mid - and low - end mobile phones, increased by nearly 80% by the end of the year compared to the middle of the year. The price of the 12GB LPDDR5X, used in mid - and high - end phones, increased from about $33 at the beginning of the year to more than $70 in November, a increase of more than 110%. This has also made memory chips the third - largest cost item after the screen and the processor.

The Counterpoint report shows that the storage cost of budget phones priced at around 1000 yuan accounts for up to 43%. Some models have fallen into a negative - margin dilemma of "losing money on each unit sold." A brand manufacturer admitted, "It's not that we don't want to make budget phones, but now we lose money on each unit sold. It's really hard to sustain."

Lu Weibing, the president of Xiaomi Group, said at MWC 2026, "This round of memory price increase is expected to last until the end of 2027. Counting from the second quarter of 2025, it will span nearly three years." However, IDC predicts that "even if the memory price drops in 2028, it will be difficult to return to the low level of 2025, and the entire industry will enter a stage of normal high prices."

It's not just budget phones that are increasing in price. With the increase in chip prices, the upcoming flagship models are also likely to have reduced configurations but the same price. The market research firm Counterpoint Research predicts that after March, the average price of new mobile phones in the Chinese market will increase by 15% - 30% compared to models in the same price range in 2025.

More than one dealer told Tech Planet that the minimum memory configuration of new models launched by manufacturers in the future will be 6 + 128G, and there may also be 6 + 256G, 8 + 256G, 8 + 521G. There are also 12G models, but they will be 1000 yuan more expensive. "This configuration is like going back to 2020."

Meanwhile, a higher price may not buy a phone with better configuration. "Previously, a 12 + 256G phone was sold for 1499 yuan, but now an 8 + 256G phone is sold for 1599 yuan," the above - mentioned dealer added.

There has never been an easy option in the mobile phone industry. This year, the competition among mobile phone manufacturers is bound to be more intense, forcing them to come up with more convincing products to attract consumers to place orders. Those mediocre products will eventually be eliminated, and mobile phone manufacturers must bid farewell to the low - profit scale game and return to the origin of technological innovation.

This article is from the WeChat public account "Tech Planet" (ID: tech618), author: Wang Lin. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.