According to industry sources close to Chinese mobile phone manufacturers, Samsung has sent notices to its hardware partners about price increases for CIS (camera image sensor) components. Starting next year, the South Korean technology giant will increase the price of some parts by 25% and other parts by up to 30%.
Samsung is one of the world's largest makers of CMOS sensors, and the South Korean company is seeing a surge in orders for the first time in two years.
In the past two years, the global smartphone market has been quite sluggish. The CIS component market has been affected by the sluggish demand in the consumer market, which has also impacted market prices, making CIS components one of the first groups to be hit by price declines. However, after entering the second half of this year, as the smartphone market demand began to fully recover, driven by orders from Chinese mobile phone brands, demand increased significantly, which became the tipping point for the rapid depletion of CIS component inventories.
After seeing the dawn of market recovery, Samsung is confident enough to raise prices. The report also stated that the price increase mainly affects high-resolution sensors with 32 million pixels and above. Whether this change will significantly impact the overall price of smartphones and Samsung's own phones remains to be seen.