Xiaomi (小米) Phones Face Price Pressure as Memory Costs Soar, Lei Jun Says

Summary

Xiaomi (小米) founder Lei Jun (雷军) told delegates at the National People's Congress that a global surge in demand for AI compute has driven memory and flash prices sharply higher, putting “huge” pressure on Xiaomi’s handset and related businesses. He said the company will try to absorb costs through internal efficiency gains and “think of every way” to limit consumer pain — but did not rule out price adjustments. Last year’s Redmi (红米) K90 pricing row — where larger storage models carried a steep premium that Xiaomi later trimmed — was explicitly blamed by Lei for being driven by memory cost inflation.

What’s driving the spike

Data from the National Development and Reform Commission’s price monitoring centre (国家发展和改革委价格监测中心) show DRAM and NAND flash at their highest levels since the agency began tracking them in 2016. For one mainstream DDR4 8Gb part, spot prices reportedly jumped from about $3.2 at 2025 lows to roughly $15, an increase of some 369%. Regulators and industry analysts point to AI servers’ voracious memory needs as the immediate demand shock; analysts also note that geopolitical frictions and export controls have tightened global chip supply chains, compounding the squeeze.

Industry fallout and outlook

It has been reported that several leading handset makers — OPPO (欧珀), OnePlus (一加), vivo (维沃), iQOO (iQOO), Honor (荣耀) and others — were preparing early-March product price adjustments, and that some models have seen discounts pulled or high-storage SKUs go out of stock. Bloggers have even reportedly claimed that a few manufacturers are pausing next-generation flagship development; Meizu (魅族) publicly said steep memory inflation was the “final straw” forcing it to halt certain new-hardware projects. Counterpoint Research warns the memory crunch could cut global smartphone shipments 12% in 2026 and extend the slump into 2027 unless new capacity comes online. Can vendors eat the costs without passing them to buyers? The short answer: increasingly unlikely.