Xiaomi President Lu Weibing Foresees Chinese Flagship Smartphone Prices Surpassing 10000 Yuan Due To Increasing Memory Component Costs And Supply Chain Strains
The pricing landscape of the Chinese mobile market seems set for a steep increase due to the soaring costs of component prices. Xiaomi President Lu Weibing stated in a recent livestream that the prices of top tier candybar smartphones produced by Chinese brands could exceed the 10000 yuan mark by the end of 2026, highlighting an apparent clash between the need for high performance hardware and the reality of the global semiconductor supply chain. IT Home reported Lu Weibing’s prediction as it shed light on the impact that mounting memory component prices, such as those for DRAM and NAND flash, are expected to have on future consumer devices.
The rising costs of memory components are said to be the primary contributor to the predicted price surge. Lu Weibing mentioned that while a company is preparing to announce new product pricing, it must factor in an increase in the cost of memory chips. He explained that the capacity of producers to alleviate these costs, by producing more chips, is hampered by the extensive three year construction period typically required to get a new memory manufacturing plant fully operational and producing chips in meaningful volumes. Given the increasing demand for both high performance computing as well as artificial intelligence servers, the demand for memory chips is likely to remain strained well into 2027 or even into 2028.
Xiaomi is not the only one facing a difficult market, as competitors like Oppo, Vivo, and Honor, among others, are experiencing the exact same problems of increasing silicon and storage costs, pushing prices up across the board. The era of cheap and value driven Chinese smartphones, which has lasted over a decade, is being challenged and the benchmark of 10000 yuan for a non folding flagship phone looks like a likely target for the entire industry to reach by late 2026.
