As global chip shortages have shot up the cost of NAND and DRAM, Xiaomi's Redmi K90 pricing change is a reflection of consumer dissatisfaction.

The price of Xiaomi's new Redmi K90 series surprised the market, and the Chinese smartphone manufacturer announced Friday that the cost of producing smartphones has gone up due to growing memory chip prices. According to a Weibo post by President Lu Weibing, cost pressure has affected the prices of their new products. Memory chip prices are rising at a rate that is well above estimates and could continue to rise.

The Redmi K90 is a base edition that costs around 2,599 yuan and has 256 GB of storage and 12 GB of memory and was introduced by Xiaomi on Thursday. Lu stated that customers were unhappy with the differences in design charges. The brand will reduce the price of the most popular K90 model. During the first month of sales, which has 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage, it went up by around 300 yuan to 2,899 yuan, he added.

The supply of old chips used in servers, smartphones, and personal computers has been strictly restricted by a worldwide rush for chips for AI applications. This has increased the cost of these chips and increased profits for manufacturers of NAND and DRAM, including the South Korean teams Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.