Huaqiangbei, home to the world’s biggest electronics wholesale market, is seeing a dramatic increase in the prices of memory chips and other storage products, which is expected to drive up the cost of consumer electronics goods such as smartphones, tablets and personal computers, reports the South China Morning Post.
The increase, especially for large-capacity models, has been “astounding,” as some memory chips had doubled in price, said Cai Zhaojie, a vendor who sells and builds personal computers for enterprises and professional users in Huaqiangbei, located in the southern tech hub of Shenzhen.
A 32-gigabyte DDR5 memory kit, which cost around RMB 1,000 ($140) in September, sold for RMB 1,300 by mid-October when a client of Cai complained about the price increase. That same product now costs RMB 1,799, according to Cai. These kits are high-speed memory components used in video gaming computers.