Mobile phone manufacturers are taking multiple measures to offset price increases. Will budget phones priced around a thousand yuan really disappear?

Image source: AI-generated

Securities Times reporter Zhuo Yong, intern Zhou Shuhan

After OPPO and vivo both raised the prices of multiple device models, Xiaomi has also, recently, officially announced that it will adjust the suggested retail prices of some in-stock models effective April 11. Wei Siqi, General Manager of Market Department for Xiaomi China, said bluntly: “The momentum and magnitude of this round of memory price increases are still far beyond expectations.”

A wave of mobile phone price adjustments triggered by rising storage chip prices is spreading across the industry. As major brands raise prices one after another—especially for mid- and low-end models, which are the first to be hit—many consumers have said on social media that they plan to delay upgrading their phones and take a wait-and-see approach with cash on hand. Discussions about “will budget phones disappear?” have also heated up.

Securities Times reporter recently conducted on-the-ground visits to multiple offline stores in Shenzhen and connected with industry insiders to reconstruct the real situation and impact of this round of mobile phone price increases.

Manufacturers offset the increases with promotional discounts

During visits to multiple mainstream phone retail venues in Shenzhen, the reporter found that many brands’ multiple models have indeed increased in price to varying degrees. However, the brands have also simultaneously rolled out promotional activities such as discounts and buy-more-pay-less offers. Combined with policy subsidies, the actual “final-to-hand” price is not “shockingly high.”

At an OPPO store in one shopping mall, a salesperson told the reporter that the A-series and K-series, which are mainly aimed at the mid- and low-end market, generally went up by around 300 yuan. The impact is even more noticeable for the OnePlus series—some models even rose by more than 500 yuan. However, the reporter noticed that models such as OPPO A6 and A6s have their prices marked in red. The staff explained: “The official price has increased, but at the same time we’ve also provided discounts—so it effectively pulls the price back.”

A staff member at a vivo store in the same mall also said that most models’ prices have been adjusted upward. But the store will offer supporting activity subsidies to reduce the pressure on consumers as much as possible.

Multiple store staff mentioned that customers can enjoy national subsidies when purchasing now: 15% off based on the final price, with a maximum subsidy of 500 yuan. After converting, it’s roughly an 85% discount. The OPPO store further stated that Shenzhen Mobile users can also stack an operator subsidy, making the actual final price even more favorable.

Regarding the subsequent price trend, most frontline sales staff believe that “prices still need to rise.”

A salesperson at a Xiaomi Home store revealed: “Redmi Note 15 is currently selling for 1,199 yuan and hasn’t increased yet, but after June it might rise to 1,299 yuan or even higher.” Staff at a Honor store also said that phone prices will most likely be adjusted upward in the future, but the specific models and the extent of the increase are not yet clear.

The phenomenon of phone price increases has also been verified at the distribution-channel level. A mobile phone agent surnamed Lu told the reporter that the price he gets from upstream suppliers has indeed gone up. The increase for budget phones is relatively moderate—about 60 to 70 yuan per unit. He also raised his retail prices accordingly, and his profit space has not been squeezed.

“An OPPO A6 was over 1,300 yuan for procurement before. After the New Year, within one or two weeks it quickly climbed to around 1,400 yuan—but then it went back to the pre–New Year level after about two weeks.” Lu said. Compared with the small fluctuations of budget phones, the price increases for mid- and high-end models are more obvious. “iPhone 17 Pro Max rose by 300 yuan after the New Year in March. Mid- and high-end Android phones also generally increased by one to two hundred yuan.”

The reporter noticed that, despite price increases for new phones being widespread, many consumers have turned their attention to the secondhand market. In a visit to Huaqiangbei in Shenzhen, the reporter found that the buying-and-recycling of secondhand phones and related accessories is extremely hot. “All our secondhand phones have increased too—Apple phones have increased as well, about one or two hundred yuan like that. When chip prices started increasing half a month ago, prices also started to rise. Now it’s hard to go down.” An operator at a secondhand phone recycling counter in a communications market told the reporter.

Some merchants also said that prices for low-end models have risen to varying degrees. As Securities Times reported earlier, the recycling prices for secondhand phones from multiple online and offline channels have indeed increased, but there has been no “sky-high recycling” as in rumors.

Year-on-year decline in shipment volume

A smartphone is made up of several hundred, even over a thousand, parts. Among them, a stable high-performance storage system is key to supporting phone operation, and storage chips are therefore one of the core components with the highest share in a phone’s cost structure. During the visits, industry insiders generally pointed to rising storage chip prices as the cause of this round of phone price increases. In addition, the larger the storage capacity of a phone, the higher the price increase may be.

Data released on February 28 by the National Development and Reform Commission’s Price Monitoring Center show that as of January 2026, the prices of the two main global storage chip products—DRAM (memory) and NAND flash—both reached the highest levels since statistical data began in 2016. Gu Biancun Consulting (IDC China?)—a global high-tech industry research institute—said that taking a storage configuration of 8GB+256GB as an example, the estimated contract price for the first quarter of 2026 rose by nearly 200% compared with the same period in 2025.

Guo Tianxiang, research manager at IDC China, noted that demand for AI servers and AI terminals is breaking out and is crazily eating into memory production capacity. Mainstream memory manufacturers are shifting capacity toward AI-dedicated memory with higher profit margins. Supply of ordinary memory for phones and PCs remains continuously tight.

IDC predicts that storage supply pressure will run through all of 2026, and even continue into 2027. As a result, global smartphone shipments in 2026 are expected to decline by 12.9%, while revenue is expected to fall by 0.5%.

Statistics from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) also show that in February 2026, domestic smartphone shipments were 16.258 million units, down 12.6% year on year. In January–February 2026, smartphone shipments were 6623.4T units, down 14.3% year on year.

With shipment volume declining, price increases for certain models are further intensified. The reporter learned from an offline authorized store of “JD.com Home” in Shenzhen that store supply has been affected to a certain extent, which also pushes prices higher. However, for agents like Mr. Lu who receive a fixed daily procurement quota, the reduction in overall market supply has almost no impact on their procurement quantity, and price fluctuations are also relatively small. “The bigger impact is generally on online self-operated stores, but if you factor in subsidies, prices in online channels won’t rise by too much.”

Will budget-phone opportunities exit the market?

It’s difficult to relieve mobile industry cost pressure in the short term, and some people worry that if memory-chip prices continue to stay high, budget phones may gradually exit the market.

“It’s impossible for budget phones to be eliminated.” Lu, a frontline salesperson, said directly. In his view, the budget-phone market has a fairly fixed customer base—older users, most of whom live on pensions, and who don’t have high demands for phone configuration but are quite sensitive to price. He predicts that over the next two years, there won’t be a big increase for mid- and low-end models. Compared with that, mid- and high-end models will be affected more. “Younger customers buy mid- and high-end models more, but they’re not as sensitive to price.”

For price-sensitive customers, new budget phones are still being launched in the market. For example, on April 2, Huawei Enjoy 90 Pro Max and Enjoy 90 Plus officially went on sale. Thanks to the Kirin chip and pricing within the budget range, they won the sales champion position in the 1,000–2,000 yuan price segment on JD.com’s phone bestseller chart on the day. On the same day, Honor launched a new budget model, X80i, scheduled to go on sale on April 10.

But Guo Tianxiang pointed out that future chip supply will further tilt toward large manufacturers, and this phenomenon will be even more significant in the smartphone industry. The slim profits of budget smartphones will be hard to absorb the big increase in storage prices. Some manufacturers may withdraw from the relevant price segment, or release products with clearly reduced specifications but possibly higher prices.

Some viewpoints suggest that this round of price hikes could become an opportunity for the smartphone market to transform—pushing the market to shift from simply “competing on price” to “competing on value” that focuses more on product and experience.

(Editor: Dong Pingping)

     【Disclaimer】This article only represents the author’s personal views and is not related to Hexun.com. Hexun makes no guarantees, whether express or implied, regarding the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of the statements and judgments contained in the text. Readers are only for reference and should bear all responsibility themselves. Email: news_center@staff.hexun.com