With the start of the new semester at mainland universities approaching, the “back-to-school digital trio” comprised of smartphones, laptops, and tablets is experiencing a surge in purchases, leading to a rise in prices for some products. A parent in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, mentioned that a high-configuration laptop has exceeded 10,000 Chinese yuan, and when adding a new smartphone to the budget, it reaches close to 20,000 yuan, forcing them to forgo buying a tablet.
According to a report by “First Financial”, personnel at several HP, Lenovo, and Asus stores in Shenzhen revealed that some computers will undergo price adjustments from late August to early September.
An employee at an HP store stated that over 80% of their products had their prices adjusted by August 28th, with the highest increase reaching around 15%. They are planning for another price adjustment on September 1st, with the brand’s products having seen an accumulated price increase of about 20% previously. Asus store employees anticipate that some products will see a minimum increase of 500 yuan after September.
Reports indicate that the price of a laptop has risen by over 1,000 yuan within two months. A computer merchant in Hangzhou mentioned that the prices of some hard drives have surged from over 400 yuan to approximately 1,000 yuan. In the past, students would come to upgrade their memory or hard drives close to the start of the school year, but many are now giving up after hearing the prices.
As of August 30th, the top two best-selling laptops on Tmall’s ranking both cost over 10,000 yuan for high-configuration products.
A parent of a freshman in Hangzhou originally planned to spend 10,000 yuan on a high-configuration laptop, but the prices of several models they favored had already exceeded that amount. With the addition of a new smartphone, the total expenditure reached nearly 20,000 yuan. The parent ultimately decided not to buy a tablet, allocating the budget to the computer.
Some parents expressed that a computer is necessary for university studies, and with the start of the school year fast approaching, it’s difficult to continue waiting, leaving them with no choice but to accept the increased prices.
The related topic trended on Weibo’s hot search list on August 30th, with netizens saying, “I should have bought it at the beginning of the summer vacation” and others stating, “There’s no need to compete, just make sure it’s functional.”
Many interviewed store personnel mentioned that the current price hike of computers is related to the rising cost of storage chips. The increased demand for memory and server storage products for AI data centers has prompted major storage chip manufacturers to redirect more capacity towards higher-profit AI and server products, affecting the supply of common memory and flash memory used in phones and computers.
TrendForce, a technology industry market research firm, predicted in July that the contract prices for regular DRAM and NAND flash memory in the third quarter will continue to rise by 13% to 18% and 10% to 15%, respectively, albeit at a slower rate compared to the previous two quarters.
Li Xin, an associate researcher at the School of Electrical Engineering at Southeast University, noted that establishing new chip factories and achieving stable production capacities takes time, suggesting that this round of price increases could last for over a year.
Store personnel in Shenzhen further mentioned that the 500 yuan student subsidy provided by the store will expire on August 31st, leading to an increase in the actual purchase cost of machines after September.