Xiaomi just did something that most tech companies have shied 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 explain exactly how the ongoing DRAM crisis has affected the company’s overall manufacturing costs.
How bad are the numbers?
Getting 12GB of RAM paired with 512GB of storage now costs Xiaomi about 1,500 yuan, about $220, more than it did a year ago. Yes, you read that correctly. That’s a nearly four-fold increase in storage costs compared to the first quarter of 2025.
To put things into perspective, 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage are quite common in upper mid-range Android smartphones. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money on Android flagships, but value good features and a good price-performance ratio, you should choose these models.
However, that is not the end of the story. The situation is even worse for top-end devices with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. Weibing did not give the exact figures for such a model, which in itself says a lot. Of course, the company cannot cope with such a sharp increase in component costs.
Who will be hit first and when?
The Redmi series takes the first hit. Three models, including the Redmi K90 Pro Max, Redmi Turbo 5 and Redmi Turbo 5 Max, will see price increases starting April 11, 2026 in the company’s home market. It’s quite ironic that Redmi, the brand built on the promise of affordable prices, is suffering the most.
Global markets have not yet been targeted, although Xiaomi’s prices are already higher internationally, which would help the company absorb the shock. Weibing mentions that prices will decrease once the memory market stabilizes. However, we have heard many market analysts and reports claiming that the storage crisis will last until the end of this decade.
