ISLAMABAD: Xiaomi has just announced its Q3 results and issued a stark warning to anyone thinking about buying a smartphone: get ready for prices to go even higher next year.
It claims the main reason is a hike in the cost of memory chips, which it says is now a global issue tied to AI’s rapid growth.
According to Xiaomi, memory manufacturers like Samsung are shifting focus away from mobile chips and putting a lot more of their production toward data centers, where demand for AI-related hardware is very high. This is driving up the prices of memory across the industry, and phone makers are starting to feel it.
Xiaomi President Lu Weibing is of the view that this change will affect the prices of phones released in 2026. He noted that the cost pressure will be “much heavier next year than this year,” adding that customers should expect a “sizeable rise in product retail prices.”
He also said that price increases would be unavoidable, adding that they would not entirely offset the inflationary pressures on manufacturing. In other words, prices for smartphones that have clearly been trending upward for the last few years will keep rising unabated.
If these predictions hold, consumers can expect another jump in smartphone prices in 2026, continuing the steady climb that has already reshaped the mobile market.
