Hardware prices rise up to 60%; even Amazon can't withstand the pressure of memory shortages.

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The global memory shortage continues to drive up hardware costs, putting the technology industry under a new round of price increase pressure.

According to TechCrunch on August 24, Amazon recently raised prices across multiple product lines including Fire TV, Echo, Kindle, and Eero, with some products' prices surging by up to 60%. For instance, the price of the Echo Dot smart speaker rose from $49.99 to $79.99, a single increase of $30.

Amazon stated: “The consumer electronics industry is facing a substantial increase in the cost of memory and storage components. After absorbing these cost increases for as long as possible, we recently adjusted the pricing across our entire product line.” This round of price hikes is not an initiative by Amazon, but a passive response to the soaring memory costs. The ongoing expansion of AI infrastructure is absorbing a massive amount of memory capacity through servers and AI systems, with demand growing significantly faster than supply. Prices of memory products such as DRAM continue to rise.

From Apple to Amazon, memory shortage becomes the main reason for price hikes

Recently, according to supply chain news, Apple plans to complete global price adjustments for the iPhone 17 series by the end of August, with prices increasing by up to nearly 1,000 yuan per unit (Japan has already implemented adjustments). The main cause is the enormous cost pressure resulting from storage chip shortages and skyrocketing prices. Previously, the Mac and iPad China editions had already raised prices, and the industry expects that, due to supply chain constraints, Apple's product prices may continue to rise.

At the same time, Nvidia's AI server business is also facing price increase pressure. According to Bloomberg, Nvidia plans to raise the prices of servers equipped with its AI chips by over 15%, with these changes taking effect for systems shipped starting early next year. Contract server manufacturers supplying Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and other major data center operators have begun notifying customers about price increases.

Memory is not only a core component of Nvidia GPUs and server systems, but also a basic material for consumer electronic devices. With explosive investment in AI infrastructure, memory demand continues to outpace supply expansion. Even as leading DRAM manufacturers gradually increase capacity, the gap between market supply and demand remains difficult to quickly close.

The shortage is expected to persist. Industry consensus suggests that global memory supply and demand tensions may continue until 2027, while prices may not peak and stabilize until around 2028. This means hardware manufacturers' cost pressures are unlikely to ease in the short term.

Faced with rising raw material costs, tech companies are gradually passing pressure downstream. Amazon said it will continue to ease the impact of price hikes in the coming year through periodic promotional activities; Apple has also raised its product prices and launched device leasing plans to reduce consumers’ one-off expenditures.

From consumer electronics to AI servers, this round of price hikes is becoming another cost for AI industry expansion. For hardware companies, high memory prices will continue to squeeze profit margins, and whether end consumers can bear higher prices will become an important variable affecting these companies' sales and revenue growth.

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