In previous years, July and August typically saw a sales peak for the "back-to-school trio" of laptops, smartphones, and tablets. However, this year, many students and parents have reported significant price increases for these items.
A parent stated in an interview that she had visited several stores with her child, intending to buy a laptop because she had previously promised to get one for her child upon entering university. She had been monitoring related products since spring of this year.
At that time, a branded laptop equipped with "32GB RAM and 1TB storage" was priced at over 5,500 yuan. She decided not to purchase it then, hoping to wait for a better deal. However, when she recently checked the same model again, she found the price had risen to over 7,000 yuan. "I never expected laptop prices to rise so quickly. Adding smartphones and tablets to the mix makes the back-to-school trio quite expensive this summer. It would have been better to buy earlier."
Since the second half of 2025, global memory chip prices have entered a sustained upward trend. By the first quarter of 2026, the cumulative increase for mainstream consumer-grade high-speed storage products had exceeded 30%, with the rise continuing to expand in the second quarter. This wave of price hikes quickly spread from upstream components to consumer terminals, affecting smartphones, laptops, and tablets alike.
In the smartphone sector, DRAM contract prices surged by 90% to 95% quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter of 2026, while NAND flash prices rose synchronously by 55% to 60%. By the end of the first half of the year, the average contract price for smartphone memory chips had increased by over 200% compared to the end of 2025. The combined share of memory chips in the smartphone bill of materials skyrocketed from approximately 13% in the first quarter of 2025 to an estimated 43% in the third quarter of 2026.
The PC market has also experienced significant volatility. Taking DDR5 16GB RAM modules as an example, the price was only around 300 yuan in September 2025, but rose to between 1,200 and 1,400 yuan by January 2026. Currently, brand-new laptops priced under 5,000 yuan are almost nonexistent in the market, significantly raising the entry barrier for basic models. This price surge, driven by AI computing demand, is comprehensively reshaping the pricing structure of consumer electronics.
Industry insiders point out that some parents believe current prices are too high and plan to wait two or three months before making a purchase. This mindset is not advisable. Based on current market trends and historical experience, this round of price increases for digital products may continue until after 2027, indicating a long cycle with little possibility of short-term price drops. For consumers with urgent needs, early planning may be a more practical choice.