On March 16, the memory price increase storm hit, and many brands announced that some products would soon adjust prices. Among them, vivo issued an announcement announcing that it will raise the prices of some models including the sub-brand iQOO starting from 10:00 on March 18, leaving a buffer period for consumers to purchase at the original price.
In response, vivo responded: "Recently, the supply and cost of core components such as upstream storage have fluctuated greatly, and the industry is generally facing periodic pressure. Against this background, we will adjust the recommended retail prices of some models/versions on sale according to the periodic price policy, and the relevant information will be subject to official channels."
Less than a week ago, OPPO and OnePlus issued announcements announcing that they would raise prices for some old models that are already on sale starting from March 16. This is regarded as a clear signal in this round of industry price increases due to the soaring cost of core components.
In February this year, when Samsung released the new Galaxy S26 series, the price had increased by 1,000 yuan compared with the previous generation model. Coincidentally, on March 10, the price of the 16GB+512GB version of Honor’s new generation folding screen phone Magic V6 increased by 1,000 yuan compared to the previous generation Magic V5 with the same specifications, from 9,999 yuan to 10,999 yuan.
And all this may be just the beginning. This move actually releases an important signal: against the background of continued rising upstream costs, the mobile phone market may usher in multiple rounds of price adjustments in 2026, and there may be a second or even third round of price corrections in the second half of the year.
In this context, the key variable driving changes in the global mobile phone market is no longer just AI capabilities, image upgrades or chip iteration speed, but a more basic and grim factor: storage price.
Since the second half of 2025, the global memory chip industry has rarely seen general gains.
TrendForce's latest storage industry survey shows that the expected growth rate of conventional DRAM contract prices in the first quarter of 2026 has been revised upwards from the previously estimated 55% - 60% to 90% - 95%; the first quarter growth rate of NAND Flash contract prices has also been revised upward from 33% - 38% to 55% - 60%, and there is still the possibility of further increases.
IDC pointed out that after this round of price increases, the cost proportion of memory semiconductors in the BOM (bill of materials) of smartphones has increased from the previous 10%-15% to more than 20%. Changes in cost structure have been rapidly transmitted from upstream to terminals.
After the Spring Festival, topics related to “mobile phone price increase” have been on the hot searches many times. Different from partial price increases or minor adjustments to flagship models in the past, this may become the largest and most comprehensive collective price adjustment in the past five years. In this context, the "waiting party" faces a new reality: buy early and save early, and the longer you wait, the more expensive it becomes.