Xiaomi reveals how much smartphone costs have actually risen due to the DRAM crisis

Lu Weibing, President of Xiaomi’s smartphone division, has made a surprisingly specific statement on the Chinese social network Weibo about the effects of the DRAM crisis. According to this, the manufacturer is paying 1,500 yuan ($220) more for 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB of flash memory than in the first quarter of 2025, which means that smartphones such as the Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 Pro+ ($479 on Amazon) will have to be sold at a significantly higher price.

The price increase will be even more drastic for models with 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage, although Lu Weibing does not provide exact figures for this configuration. According to Lu Weibing, storage prices have risen even more than the technology giant had expected, which is why the company will increase the list price of the Redmi K90 Pro Max, Redmi Turbo 5 and Redmi Turbo 5 Max in China on April 11. So far, no comparable price increases have been announced for the global market, but most Xiaomi smartphones are already significantly more expensive internationally, so Xiaomi should have more leeway to cushion the effects of the DRAM crisis.

Lu Weibing emphasizes that prices will be lowered again as soon as memory prices fall again. It is currently impossible to predict when the DRAM crisis will be over. While some analysts expect prices to fall again from 2028, some suppliers fear that the memory shortage will last until 2030. How the prices for RAM and NAND develop over the coming months and years depends on the expansion of production capacity on the one hand, but also on demand from AI giants such as OpenAI, which are largely responsible for the memory crisis, on the other.