Storage surge forces Chinese smartphone price adjustments: Honor’s new foldable phones “guarantee minimum and maximum price increases”

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The continuous surge in upstream storage prices is putting more cost pressure on domestic mobile phone manufacturers.

“Price increases” to shift costs have become the helpless yet necessary survival choice for Chinese phone manufacturers amid current supply chain turbulence.

On March 10, two major moves—one in the morning and one in the evening—by leading domestic phone makers OPPO and Honor sharply reflected the different hedging logics in today’s smartphone market.

This morning, OPPO’s official store took the lead by firing the “first shot” of price adjustments, announcing that some already launched products will see price changes starting from March 16, 2026.

In terms of scope, the affected products are mainly concentrated in price-performance-focused lines, including the A, K series, and some OnePlus models; the mid-to-high-end Find, Reno, and Pad series are not among those with price increases for now.

Behind this differentiated pricing strategy is the reality of different segment models facing supply chain fluctuations.

Mid-range models around 2000 yuan have long relied on “small profits and quick turnover.” With storage costs skyrocketing, their already slim profit margins are extremely compressed, forcing manufacturers to pass costs down to end users through direct price increases.

On the other hand, mid-to-high-end models priced above 4000 yuan have stronger risk resistance thanks to higher gross margins, enabling them to absorb the rising storage costs.

Facing the same supply chain pressure, Honor’s current strategy for high-end phones is “no price increase for small memory, price increase for large memory.”

On the evening of March 10, Honor officially launched its new generation foldable flagship phone, the Magic V6. The 12+256GB version is priced at 8,999 yuan, the same as the Magic V5.

However, for “large memory” versions, the Magic V6 adds a “12+512GB” model, priced at 9,999 yuan—the same as the Magic V5’s “16+512GB” model.

Meanwhile, Honor raised the prices of the Magic V6’s 16+512GB and 16+1TB versions, now priced at 10,999 yuan and 11,999 yuan, each 1,000 yuan higher than the corresponding Magic V5 models—an increase of about 10%.

Looking at various hardware parameters such as battery, chip, and screen, the Magic V6 has not been downgraded. For example, it’s equipped with the fifth-generation Snapdragon 8 Ultra processor and has a 7150mAh Qinghai Lake battery, among other features.

This refined SKU management strategy of “keeping the starting price stable and increasing the price of top versions” both secures the product’s market foundation and consumers’ initial price expectations—avoiding customer loss due to an increased starting price—while accurately passing the supply chain pressure on to the top-tier customers who are less price-sensitive and pursue ultimate capacity and top-tier experiences.

With OPPO and Honor both revealing their strategies, the solution logic of Chinese phone makers to the storage cycle in 2026 is gradually becoming clear.

In this passive defensive battle triggered by upstream inflation, the inevitable rigid cost increase for the mid- and low-end market will ultimately be borne by end consumers. Meanwhile, in the high-end flagship arena, manufacturers are seeking a delicate balance between holding the profit bottom line and maintaining market share by using more flexible price ranges and technology stacking.

Under cost pressure, how to persuade consumers to pay a premium for genuinely irreplaceable innovative experiences will be a compulsory question for all phone makers in 2026.

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