Customers browse smartphones at a duty-free store in Haikou, South China's Hainan Province, on February 21, 2026. Photo: VCG

Multiple Chinese smartphone makers are planning price hikes in March due to soaring memory chip prices, media reported, including OPPO, which said it will adjust prices for some products online and in physical stores from March 16.

OPPO announced on Tuesday that it will adjust prices for certain previously launched products effective on March 16. In a company notice, OPPO attributed the move to rising costs of key components.

An OPPO customer service representative told the Global Times the price hike will cover both online and on-site channels and affect already-launched models in the OPPO A series, K series, and the OnePlus brand. However, the OPPO Find series, Reno series, and Pad series will not be included this time, according to the representative.

Market research firm Counterpoint Research predicted that the average selling price of new smartphones in the Chinese market will increase by 15 percent to 25 percent compared with models in the same price segments in 2025.

Multiple smartphone brands are set to adjust prices this month, the Securities Daily reported, citing multiple sources. The move is described as the industry's most extensive and steepest price adjustment in nearly five years.

As demand for generative artificial intelligence (AI) and large-language model training surges, memory chips have transformed from conventional consumer electronics components into strategic infrastructure assets, Zhang Yi, CEO of the iiMedia Research Institute, told the Global Times. This industrial repositioning will inevitably reshape the value chain, he said.

Data released on February 28 by the Price Monitoring Center of China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) showed that as of January, prices for the two main types of memory chips - DRAM and NAND flash - had reached their highest levels since data collection began in 2016.

Memory chips are in a price upcycle, with global supply shortages persisting through the year amid rising AI server demand, the NDRC Price Monitoring Center said. Chip prices will continue climbing, affecting consumer electronics prices.

"The current price hike is significant in magnitude and prolonged in duration, with the core driving force being the proliferation of AI technology. Global chip manufacturers are prioritizing the shift of production capacity toward high-value-added AI chips, which has objectively reduced the supply of memory chips for consumer electronics, leading to supply shortages and soaring prices," Ma Jihua, a veteran industry analyst, told the Global Times.

"AI is now embedded in nearly all electronics. Local intelligent computing demands greater storage and processing power, much like the human brain needs enough capacity. This has vastly expanded memory chip applications and made demand more rigid, making it hard to ease the supply-demand imbalance anytime soon," Ma said.

"For smartphone makers, memory chips are a major cost component, and the latest price surge is squeezing an industry already running on thin margins," Ma told the Global Times. Early movers on price hikes are typically those with tighter cost controls or strong cost-performance reputations. Premium models, with fatter margins, can better absorb the hit. But with competition intense and market shares neck-and-neck, price hikes will dent consumer demand, leaving little room for adjustments, he said.

"For domestic smartphone makers, this is a window of opportunity that forces an upgrade," Zhang said. "Leading brands should seize this moment to reshape their profit models through chip self-development, system-level power optimization, and value-added software services."

Zhang added that domestic brands can differentiate storage configurations and leverage cloud computing to offset local storage limits, balancing cost pressures while maintaining user experience, and shifting from hardware sales to service-based models.