The AI craze triggers a surge in component prices and laptops and mobile phones set off record price increases

Reporters Wang Yihong and Zhuo Yijun/Special report

Driven by rising prices for memory and other products, the prices of consumer electronics products have become significantly more expensive than the previous generation this year. In terms of consumer experience, notebook computers have seen the largest increase, followed by mobile phones, tablets, etc. Chen Qimeng, general manager of Taiwan's Samsung Electronics Mobile Communications Division, said that under the AI ​​trend, the prices of memory and other components have soared, pushing up the prices of consumer electronics products. However, the proportion of consumers currently using AI is not high. With more and more users, memory demand is expected to be "quite enthusiastic" until the end of next year. Therefore, the pressure to increase prices in the electronic consumer market next year will still remain.

The iPhone 18 Pro series is on sale, but the prices of the iPhone 17 series have bucked the trend and increased.

(European News Agency)

This year, the mobile phone market has experienced a rare series of price increases. Take the Samsung Galaxy S26 series as an example. It went on sale in March this year, and the price increased by 1,000 yuan to 3,000 yuan compared with the previous generation. On October 1, the price of the S series increased by another 3,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan. Other brands of mobile phones such as vivo will also increase their prices in the first and second half of this year. The iPhone 18 Pro series launched by Apple in September has increased by about 5,000 yuan compared with the previous generation. In the past, the price of the previous generation mobile phone would drop when a new phone was launched, but this year the iPhone 17 series has not dropped but has risen.

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AI user base expands, pressure to increase prices next year remains

Chen Qimeng said that due to the increase in memory and component prices, mobile phone prices have been pushed up. Samsung previously absorbed the increase in memory, but in response to the trend, it increased mobile phone prices in October. He believes that currently only a portion of the population uses AI. As the AI ​​consumer population expands, memory demand is expected to be "quite enthusiastic" until the end of next year. The pressure to increase prices in the consumer electronics market will remain next year.

According to market analysts, the price increase in the mobile phone market in the first half of the year mainly reflects the compensatory increase in the contract price of memory chips. The price increase in the second half of the year reflects the "hard cost push" faced by the consumer electronics industry chain, including the sharp increase in memory costs, the sharp increase in the cost of advanced process chips, and the increase in the prices of other components.

In addition to mobile phones, various electronic terminal products are facing the severe test of rising costs. Major PC and NB manufacturers have increased prices quarter by quarter since this year. As of the third quarter, PC-related products have increased by more than 30%. Acer expects PC prices to continue to rise by 5% to 20% in the fourth quarter, and the increase is expected to continue until 2027.

Core components account for 68%, and there is no end in sight to the rise in computer prices in the short term.

According to TrendForce's latest laptop industry research, when memory supply was stable in the first quarter of 2025, taking mainstream models with a recommended price of US$900 as the observation benchmark, core components such as CPU, DRAM, and SSD accounted for about 45% of the BOM (bill of materials) at that time. After more than a year of price increases, the proportion of related core components has risen to 68% in the third quarter of 2026, showing that memory and CPU are growing rapidly. Rapidly reshape the cost structure of notebook computers. From the perspective of brand gross profit, due to the price increase of CPU, DRAM, SSD, etc., it is estimated that by the third quarter of 2026, the industry will have to increase the price of products in the first quarter of 2025 by 80% in order to maintain the same gross profit level as in the first quarter of 2025. This means that the impact of rising component prices on notebook terminal prices will gradually turn into pressure to expand the increase. Therefore, the trend of PC price increases will continue until 2027.

NB industry players pointed out that currently, various costs are still rising, and there is no end in sight to the rise in computer prices in the short term. NB factories can only respond in two ways, one is to increase the selling price, and the other is to lower the specifications. Many consumers have already purchased in advance in the first half of the year, and the purchasing sentiment may decline significantly in the future.

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