Xiaomi just did something most tech companies have been shying away from — it told the truth about the rise in smartphone memory prices. Lu Weibing, the president of Xiaomi’s smartphone division, took to Weibo (the Chinese microblogging platform) to spill the beans on exactly how the ongoing DRAM crisis has affected its overall manufacturing cost.
How bad are the numbers?
Sourcing 12GB of RAM paired with 512GB of storage now costs Xiaomi roughly 1,500 yuan, about $220, more than it did just a year ago. Yes, you read that right. That’s nearly a fourfold jump in memory costs compared to the first quarter of 2025.
To put things in perspective, 12GB of memory and 512GB of storage are quite common on upper mid-range Android smartphones. Anyone who doesn’t want to spend top dollar on Android flagships but wants decent specifications and value for their money goes for such models.
However, that is not the end of the story. For top-tier devices packing 16GB of memory and 1TB of storage, the situation is even worse. Weibing didn’t mention the exact figure for such a model, which says plenty on its own. Naturally, the company can’t absorb such a steep rise in the component cost.
Who gets hit first, and when?
The Redmi lineup takes the first hit. Three models, including the Redmi K90 Pro Max, the Redmi Turbo 5, and the Redmi Turbo 5 Max, will see price increases in the company’s native market starting April 11, 2026. It’s quite ironic how Redmi, the brand built around the promise of affordable pricing, is the one suffering the most.
Global markets haven’t been targeted yet, though internationally, Xiaomi’s pricing already runs higher, which would help it absorb the shock. Weibing mentions that the prices will drop once the memory market stabilizes. However, we’ve heard plenty of market analysts and reports claiming that the memory crisis is here to stay until the end of this decade.
