IDC data showed<\/a>. Sub-$100 devices accounted for 27.7% of global shipments for China’s Xiaomi in the first half of 2025. A year later, that share had fallen to just 11.2%.<\/p>\nBlame, in part, artificial intelligence’s voracious appetite for memory. Chipmakers have prioritized higher-value products used in AI infrastructure, squeezing supplies of those used in smartphones and pushing up costs.<\/p>\n
Memory now accounts for almost 60% of the bill of materials for smartphones priced below $200, according to Omdia’s Chow Sheng Win. <\/p>\n
“Low-end phones are becoming uneconomic to manufacture,” IDC Vice President of Client Device Research Bryan Ma said.<\/p>\n
In a bid to lift margins, Chinese manufacturers are moving up-market. As cheaper models become uneconomic to produce, manufacturers are pruning them from their line-ups, pushing the overall market higher. Neil Shah at Counterpoint Research estimates Xiaomi’s average selling price has risen about 30% since 2023 to $197, while Oppo’s has climbed by a similar amount to $300.<\/p>\n
Xiaomi’s sub-$200 share of shipments fell from 60% to 52.5% over the same period, according to IDC data. <\/p>\n
In mainland China, less than 20% of Xiaomi’s volume is below $200, according to Chow. <\/p>\n
That shift was on display this week when Xiaomi unveiled its higher-end 18 Fold, starting at 10,999 yuan ($1,640) and aimed squarely at the premium segment. Xiaomi didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment outside normal business hours.<\/p>\n
Chinese vendors are able to counter some of the pricing pressure, as they earn lucrative internet services and app revenues at home. Still, prices are unlikely to retreat anytime soon.<\/p>\n
Shah says it is difficult to see prices returning to 2024 or early-2025 levels because memory manufacturers have little incentive to add capacity for the low end.<\/p>\n
Even if the memory crunch eases, Ma said, “that just means that the price increases moderate,” not reverse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The days of the sub-$100 smartphone may be numbered as memory costs soar, with China seeing one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,11623,181,507,122,144,357610,74],"class_list":["post-844959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-apple-inc","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-business-news","tag-china","tag-rivernorth-opportunities-fund-inc","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}