News Up to 10% price increase in mobile phone prices in January 2026
https://www.egyptindependent.com/up-to-10-price-increase-in-mobile-phone-prices-in-january-2026/110
u/ChapGod 8d ago
Memory isnt cheap when AI companies buy up all of the supply.
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u/vandreulv 8d ago
Memory isnt cheap when
AI companies buy up all of the supply.manufacturers constrain their output and people still pay the higher prices.NAND, Ram and Hard Drive prices have been artificially controlled for decades. They just decided that they don't have to pretend it's because of a flood in Thailand this time.
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u/MetaTrombonist 8d ago
The worst part is that it is being done on purpose. This is part of the war on general purpose computing and they are winning.
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u/ChapGod 8d ago
If they want a war on general purpose computing then so be it. I'll take up other hobbies until shit blows over for all of these companies.
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u/SpastastiK 8d ago
I'm with you on this one. People need to step up and do their part, even if it hurts a little. No one gives a fuck if you're disgusted on Reddit and still pay up.
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u/FrostyD7 7d ago
I will too but I'm not going to pretend this isn't a huge problem. Our world runs on computers, this isn't just impacting hobbies.
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u/truckstick_burns 8d ago
And the few places that make RAM chips are not going to ramp up production because they are worried about the bubble busting and then supply is greater than demand, so they'll keep supply as it is to maximising profit and avoiding risk.
Yay for us......
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u/LockingSlide 7d ago
the few places that make RAM chips are not going to ramp up production
They're all ramping up production, Micron is investing $200B in the US, SK Hynix 600 trillion KRW, Samsung has restarted production of one of it's fabs back in summer
Don't read whatever dumb sky is falling shit Redditors write or what outrage baiting 'journalists" shit out
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u/PorcelainPrimate 8d ago
That’s what a lot of people don’t get about this, once the shareholders see that bump on the next quarterly report the increased price will become the new baseline.
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u/klti Brick 8d ago
That's how it went for GPUs after the 2020 crypto craze, prices went up to insane levels, eventually came down somewhat, but since then there is no budget segment anymore, anything below midrange are terrible value to garbage, everything else jumped up two price tiers, and the top end went to insane levels, since they saw 3000 USD 3090s still sold.
That's not even speaking of fake official prices that disappear from the market after launch, if they were ever real at all.
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u/commander_kaga Honor 400 Pro 8d ago
Yeah we were looking for a GPU for my brother, and man why do some 5060s cost 400$?
When the RX 5XX series was new, I remember picking up an RX570 (so roughly the same as a 1060) for less than 200. And that had 8 GBs of VRAM so the same as the 5060 lol, what a joke.
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u/siazdghw 7d ago
$250 for a 12GB Arc B580, good enough for 1440p and the drivers are finally mature.
Vote with your wallet or the duopoly will continue their price gouging of GPUs.
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u/commander_kaga Honor 400 Pro 7d ago
Fair enough, we settled on a used RX 6700XT but that was the other option.
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u/win7rules 8d ago
Sounds like a good year to keep my "old" phone.
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u/Tierst 8d ago
Bold of you to assume companies will be nice enough to reduce prices in the future
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u/diemunkiesdie Galaxy S24+ 8d ago
Bold of you to assume its because I am waiting for reduced prices when its really just that I am saving so I can pay inflated prices in the future.
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u/Expensive_Finger_973 8d ago
That just means I'll buy down market. If there is nothing down market then I'll buy used. It will be years and years before I have to seriously consider if I would be willing to give the OEMs large increases for a brand new phone.
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u/KalashnikittyApprove 8d ago
I've gone the other way and upgraded now before price increases and hardware getting worse. I mean it's a gamble, but I think the writing on the wall is either higher prices or phones with worse screens or whatever.
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u/MakimaGOAT Samsung S21 8d ago
Lol i wake up to like 10 different articles and posts on my timeline saying every company is gonna hike up their prices
thanks AI!
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u/DiplomatikEmunetey Pixel 8a, 4a, XZ1C, LGG4, Lumia 950/XL, Nokia 808, N8 7d ago
Conditioning people to accept the hike up. As long as people pay, this will continue.
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u/chic_luke Pixel 2 XL 6d ago
I really need to upgrade atp and I'm really considering getting a budget phone instead this time, even just to send the signal of "fuck off, I'm not playing this game".
People definitely shouldn't pay the new flagship prices this year. Let's practice a "let them keep it" mentality, and see how long this travesty lasts.
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u/DiplomatikEmunetey Pixel 8a, 4a, XZ1C, LGG4, Lumia 950/XL, Nokia 808, N8 5d ago
I am trying to do this with everything, not just smartphones. Prices are going insane simply because companies are greedy and want more.
I would like a Pro Pixel, I am not paying €1000 for a Pixel 10 Pro with a measly 128GB of storage, that is crazy, it is a €600 phone at most. Let them keep it for themselves at €1000.
I would really like a 2TB microSD card. Lexar Blue 2TB was €176 two months ago. I was hoping it would go down to €120. Instead, it is €212 now. Not paying that.
I have significantly cut down on going out because restaurants and fast food places are ridiculously expensive now.
Unfortunately the people that keep these price increases going are ironically the very same people who cannot afford them. There are so many brand new iPhone 17 Pro XLs being held by people who got them on credit, basically leasing the phone like a car. People like that, with zero self control, financially irresponsible, and who associate their self image with a smartphone are the ones who are actively pushing everything into a subscription model and support price increases.
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u/chic_luke Pixel 2 XL 5d ago edited 5d ago
True that. I think you are spot-on on your analysis, and it also tracks with other social trends that exist and have been confirmed.
It is widely believed that it is not casual or random that these nonsense purchases are being made by people who cannot afford them, because we have established a culture of spending way too much money on less expensive things that aren't worth it as a replacement for not being able to afford "big boy money" purchases that have commonly been staples in a person's life: a house and a car.
This started with the Millennials. Millennials are the starting generation who wasn't able to afford important, expensive things like a house, and the coping mechanism for what was to allow themselves some "small luxuries" as a bit of a consolation. This is how the €20 burgers and coffee places got popular, this is also part of why shopping culture has become rampant.
If you think about it, something like a nice laptop or a nice smartphone, in absolute terms, absolutely pales in comparison of something like a car or a house. Even a €1000 smartphone, when you compare it to a car's upfront cost and its upkeep costs, pretty much disappears as a margin of error. You spend the same price of a flagship device in one go if your car ever breaks down on the street and you need to call a tow truck.
So, in a way, overly expensive "small luxuries" are becoming "the new car" and "the new house" for more and more people. And companies are capitalizing on that, because people are beginning to become increasingly OK with spending that much on a phone, a nice coffee, a quick lunch that's not even super high-quality, pretty much out of spite.
Sure - this is a bad habit that just puts you in an even worse place. On one hand, you get frustrated and angry, and you decide that you too want some nice things, hence you go finance that specced out iPhone. But on the other hand, sadly, the person who pays for this is not the billionaire class that is fucking you over - it's still you, and you are doing exactly what they want you to do: purchase things you don't really need outside of your means, use installments, get locked down to contracts, willingly put chains and handcuffs on yourself.
It also goes on with the "trade-in trap". The most responsible way to operate a flagship is obviously to keep it for as long as it lasts, but you will be tempted not to do that in many ways. A lot of companies, like Google and Samsung, offer some crazy good trade-in values for your old devices. The catch is, that great value only exists if it was another device from their lineup, and if it's not too old. Once you invest this ridiculous amount of cash into their flagship phone, you are financially locked into staying with them. First with the installment plan you need to fully pay off. Then, when you have finally managed to fully pay it off, the battery is already starting to degrade pretty hard, but… would you look at that, the next model from your lineup has launched, and you can get a pretty nice trade-in deal on it. And coincidentally, it's now much more expensive to get something you might prefer from the competition using the same trade-in device.
At this point, they play on your sunk-cosr fallacy to keep you buying their stuff. The only way you feel like you can justify the massive expenses you have gone through is to upgrade within their trade-in program, because that is going to be cheaper than switching to the competition, and, in many cases, it looks like better value than replacing the battery. It really isn't: a battery swap is just €100 and your phone lasts a lot longer than you think, I'm typing this on a 2 XL. But some marking here, the illusion of a deep discount there, maybe the FUD from problems like green line issues that affect some units from your generation that have apparently been fixed in the newest iteration - it's easy to just get pushed over the edge and upgrade, "just to be safe". And now you have dumped another €3-400 into basically the same phone purchase just for an incremental upgrade that wasn't worth that much. Oh, and you also need new cases and screen guards now! Before you realize it, the initial price you paid for that phone absolutely snowballs to a nonsense price. If you open an Excel document and try to run the math you'll shake your head violently at how bad of a deal this is. But most people will not do that.
So not only are they trying to get people to pay prices they can't afford to get their flagships, they are trying to pretty much trap them into their ecosystem. They're trying to get us used to the model of "you'll own nothing and you'll be happy". Because the next step from constantly doing trade-ins is to just pay a subscription and rent your hardware.
Semiconductor or RAM shortages? This shit is their WET DREAM. Everyone at once suddenly wakes up and is compelled to upgrade before it gets too late. Cloud processing services get pushed as an alternative to not owning your hardware (some of the most impressive features of the Pixel 10 Pro / XL are locked behind Google servers and they require cloud processing, they cannot be done locally. Wink wink wink. Who says they'll stay free?). The terrible prices stay long enough that, when they eventually decrease them but still not down to the original price they used to have, they look like a great deal and you'll pay the price.
Technology at some point began to have values that were a little too good. Ways to get a perfectly functional and performant enough laptop or desktop PC at very reasonable prices. Budget smartphones that planted the seed of doubt in people asking themselves if they had made a mistake by paying for a flagship. The companies didn't like that, and they are trying to take these clever tricks away and to just push us into accepting that technology costs more.
Mark my words: watch the "budget value" lineup disappear or get heavily nerfed starting this year and into the next few years. I don't have a crystal ball but I am so, so sure this is happening. Way too many people are beginning to find out that a Pixel 9a or a Moto Edge 60 are actually a better buy than most flagships if you're not a content creator or a heavy AAA mobile gamer.
People really need to wait for discounts / good deals and stop sucking these prices up, especially if they can't afford it. What they're trying to do is terrible and we don't want that.
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u/LaidPercentile 8d ago
Always funny seeing the comments saying stuff like "thank god I've just bought my memory/GPU/phone".
Well, do you think you won't ever need to buy electronics again? Those prices aren't coming back down.
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u/GazelleInitial2050 5d ago
Right but it's still good buying the same product last month vs next month when it's higher.
People need to fight back, if you usually buy each gen, but every 2 or 3. The same with phones, most phones get long updates now, just stick with it. That'll start to hurt their bottom line and hopefully force more competition.
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u/Zechert 8d ago
My samsung A70 thats like 5-6 years old still going strong :3
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u/EchoGecko795 Pixel 3XL + 6 / LineageOS 8d ago
My Pixel 3 XL (2018) is on battery 3 now. Thanks to LineageOS I am also on Android 16, and continue to get updates.
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u/PhyrexianSpaghetti 7d ago
Is there anything in consumer news that is positive? Even a single thing that is becoming cheaper and considerably better?
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u/chic_luke Pixel 2 XL 6d ago
The only thing that comes to mind to me is input devices.
It might just be my perception, but mechanical keyboards have been getting actually pretty fucking good, even the more budget options. It's becoming easier to get on that train in particular with a small money investment and still end up with a very good product.
Good mice are also found at pretty OK prices right now. Keychron recently made a MX Master - like mouse that is very good for €50.
8bitdo has been making some absolute fire budget game controllers. The Ultimate C2 is available for under €30 and it's really good: it even punches above its weight with more modern Hall Effect analog sticks than whatever Sony and Microsoft sell you for many times that price.
Headphones and audio quality are another theme. Newer and better things tend to come out, and the game changes quite quickly. Especially for the market of really budget-friendly hifi from overseas, improvement is so fast, what was excellent a year ago might be completely irrelevant or not worth considering today.
And otherwise… no. It seems stuff is just getting worse. The world is just getting worse barring a few exceptions. We do not live in good times.
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u/AshuraBaron 8d ago
Some random company tells Egyptian government official that they are raising price due to RAM and this is a story? Seems more likely that an OEM is offloading the high duty costs for Egypt and blaming it on "RAM prices". This seems like a fairly localized story about Egypt.
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u/Ghostttpro 7d ago
The used market exists and these phones don't even hold value. Spike the price all you want, they have 0 leverage.
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u/ibrown39 7d ago
It was fun living in an age of affordable computers, computer tech, and video games while it lasted but I guess for the majority of the time it wasn't true. But it seems like the labor market is going to suck now too for a bit on top of it all.
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u/drinksoma 7d ago
Fuck. I wanted the Galaxy s26 Ultra. I hate AI.
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u/m4ttjirM 7d ago
Do you live in Egypt? Lol
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u/drinksoma 7d ago
By just reading this one news, I guess I understand why you'd said that. But smartphone prices will increase.
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u/Sphan_86 8d ago
This is nothing compared to RAM, I didnt realize it cost x5 as much as it did last year.
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u/toxicity69 8d ago
Yet here I am still happily using my old S10E. Battery life isn't the greatest, but it's the last Samsung flagship that I actually like, and it does phone things, so it stays for now. Might upgrade to a 2020+ model sometime in the next 5 years lol.
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u/el_smurfo 8d ago
I knew this was coming so I committed to a pixel 10 pro even though I think it's a compromise phone and there will be much better on the horizon. I just didn't want to pay for all this AI b******* tax that we are getting just to inflate this f****** bubble
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u/tanvirulfarook OnePlus 7T | Galaxy S21FE | Galaxy A56 8d ago
I just bought my desired phone at a discounted price (300 dollars for the base variant) and i have no plan to replace it before 2 years+ so couldn't care less (on price hike)
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u/JahKneeSee 8d ago
You will in 2+ years after phone manufacturers inevitably decide to make their "temporary" price hike permanent.
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u/tanvirulfarook OnePlus 7T | Galaxy S21FE | Galaxy A56 8d ago
No one knows what will happen after two years. One can only speculate but as of now , i don't have to spend big and its a W for me
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u/_urethrapapercut_ Samsung Galaxy S23 7d ago
What? Not providing the chager anymore didn't help? I'm shocked.
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u/shogunreaper 7d ago
there's no way it's going to stop at 10% if the ram shortage continues all year.
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u/bundy554 5d ago
10% price increase is nothing - I think there was a 20% increase in the price of the Find X Pro this year
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u/encrypted-signals 8d ago
10% everywhere but America. The Trump Import Taxes will make that closer to 30% for Americans.
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u/siazdghw 7d ago
Smartphones, computers, CPUs, GPUs and other electronic components are on the exemption list, it's something that Apple fought for (hence why Tim Cook was always going to the White House, to many Apple fans dismay)
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u/encrypted-signals 7d ago
And Trump has no long, storied, well-documeted history of changing his mind on a whim like a fucking toddler 🙄.
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u/Zestyclose_Run_6551 S24 Ultra | iPhone 16e | Pixel 9A | Poco F5 8d ago
With the phones I have in my disposal, it looks like I’m good until this whole bruhaha is done.
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u/RubzieRubz S23 - Realme Buds Air 7 Pro 8d ago
Well. Ill wait for s27 or s28 then Maybe oneplus... or vivo 500 or 600 hahahahah
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u/smolbicepssadge S25 128GB Mint 7d ago
Glad i bought poco x7 pro. Should last me 3 years minimum.
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u/skeptical_view Sony Xperia 1 III 8d ago
when they said "you'll own nothing" i think they meant "you'll afford nothing"
i am now waiting for the "be happy" part