Xiaomi warns of higher smartphone prices due to surging memory chip costs

BEIJING: China’s Xiaomi warned on Tuesday that consumers were likely to see further hikes in smartphone prices next year due to soaring costs of memory chips while acknowledging such a measure would not fully offset the costs.

Global memory chip prices are climbing due to surging demand for units for artificial intelligence servers as companies race to build out data centres. Chipmakers like Samsung have shifted capacity toward high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and trimmed output for those chips used in products including mobile phones.