Can domestic smartphones say goodbye to thousand-yuan phones? Are cheap phones still available for purchase?

Recently, the topic of rising mobile phone prices has attracted widespread market attention. Recently, some phone manufacturers announced price hikes. A general increase in prices is now undeniable, and some phone dealers have even said that domestically produced phones have basically bid farewell to sub-thousand-yuan models. So, is it still possible to buy affordable phones?

1. Domestic Phones Say Goodbye to Sub-Thousand-Yuan Models

According to Xinhua Daily, “Domestic phones increase by 2,000 yuan” and “Farewell to sub-thousand-yuan models”… Recently, official price increase announcements from phone brands have trended on social media, sparking heated discussions among netizens. Recently, vivo announced that it would raise prices on certain models, including its sub-brand iQOO.

Less than a week ago, OPPO also issued an announcement on its official store, stating that starting from 0:00 on March 16, prices for some already released products would be adjusted. The official actions of these two major brands signal a new wave of price hikes in the phone industry.

“Starting today, the price of the ‘OnePlus Turbo6V’ 256GB version has been adjusted from 2,099 yuan to 2,299 yuan.” At an authorized OPPO experience store, a salesperson explained to reporters: “According to official notice, the retail price of ‘OnePlus’ series phones has increased by about 200 yuan.”

The salesperson also revealed that the price adjustments involve already released products including OPPO A series, K series, and OnePlus series, but do not include OPPO Find series, Reno series, or OPPO Pad series. “Apart from the higher-performance OnePlus series, most of the price adjustments are for basic models.”

During visits to offline stores, reporters noticed that some brands, although not officially announcing price hikes, are employing various covert pricing tactics. Consumers may not see direct price increases, but their purchase costs are quietly rising.

The most obvious tactic is controlling inventory of popular models. Many best-selling models in the 2000-yuan range with small storage versions are out of stock. Consumers wanting to buy may only have options for 512GB or larger storage versions. For consumers with low storage needs, this means increasing their budget, effectively bearing the cost of the price increase indirectly.

2. Is There Still a Chance to Buy Cheap Phones?

Recently, news of rising phone prices has flooded social media. Major domestic brands like OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, and Honor have announced price increases. The once abundant sub-thousand-yuan phones are quietly disappearing from the market. What does this mean?

First, saying goodbye to sub-thousand-yuan phones is an inevitable result of material development. The continuous rise in raw material prices makes price increases unavoidable. Those brands that haven’t yet raised prices are merely enduring cost pressures temporarily and will eventually have to follow suit. From an economic perspective, product pricing in any industry must be supported by costs. The mobile industry, as a highly integrated component industry, involves chips, storage, screens, batteries, and other core parts. Fluctuations in their prices directly determine the pricing space for end products.

In recent years, global supply chain instability, scarcity of key raw materials, and capacity adjustments across various components have driven up manufacturing costs. This price increase is not short-term volatility but a long-term trend, essentially a shift upward in the industry’s cost curve. Many wonder why some brands can still maintain low prices. The answer is simple: either they are clearing out inventory models with older configurations to digest previously low-cost components, or they are compressing profit margins to sustain market presence. But this model is unsustainable in the long run.

When inventory is depleted and profits are exhausted, these companies will inevitably raise prices in line with industry trends. The disappearance of sub-thousand-yuan models is only a matter of time. We must understand that as a highly standardized consumer product, the price of phones cannot stay below cost for long. The phase-out of sub-thousand-yuan models is fundamentally a rational industry adjustment, realigning costs and pricing.

Second, Xiaomi successfully lowered phone prices leveraging China’s manufacturing dividend. Looking at the history of the industry, Xiaomi’s ability to push down prices and usher in the era of sub-thousand-yuan phones was not solely due to a “low-price strategy.” It was primarily driven by the comprehensive enhancement of China’s manufacturing capabilities, leveraging a strong industrial cluster and scale effects to achieve extreme cost compression. Many attribute the arrival of the sub-thousand-yuan era to Xiaomi’s price wars, but this is superficial. The core support behind it is the rise of Chinese manufacturing.

Before the sub-thousand-yuan era, China had already established a complete mobile industry chain—from component production and assembly to supply chain management—possessing large-scale, efficient advantages. This industrial foundation made cost reduction possible. Xiaomi’s key contribution was maximizing this advantage: large-scale procurement to lower component prices, streamlining channels and direct online sales to reduce middlemen costs, and standardizing production to improve efficiency. Ultimately, this enabled the supply of “low-cost, high-quality” products, breaking the previous monopoly of foreign brands in the low-end market with inflated prices.

The advent of sub-thousand-yuan phones was a product of the precise match between China’s manufacturing capacity and market demand, not merely price competition. Now, the phase-out of these models also indicates that the cost basis supporting low prices has changed. While China’s manufacturing advantage still exists, it can no longer offset the rising costs of core components. Different stages of industry development mean that product pricing logic must also adjust. Moreover, the recent price hikes are fundamentally caused by the inability to cover costs of core components, which are largely monopolized by a few international chip giants. Under this monopolistic economy, costs are difficult to lower.

Third, AI-driven displacement effects have become the final straw. The recent rise in phone prices due to raw material costs is partly driven by the displacement effect caused by AI industry development, which has pushed up the prices of core components. It is also a natural result of industry maturation.

From the demand side, explosive growth in AI technology has created strong demand for high-performance chips and large-capacity storage. Competition for key components in data centers, servers, and AI terminals has directly driven up supply chain prices. This cross-industry resource competition creates a clear displacement effect, inevitably affecting the consumer electronics sector, including smartphones.

From the supply side, after more than a decade of rapid growth, the smartphone market has entered a mature or even saturated phase, with limited incremental space. Companies find it difficult to further reduce costs through scale expansion. Under these circumstances, raising prices becomes a necessary choice for maintaining reasonable profit margins. More fundamentally, this shift signifies a transition from mass-market to quality-oriented consumption. Consumers need to accept that the era of low price and low quality is over; the future is about paying higher prices for better experiences.

Fourth, can phone prices return to low levels? In the short term, affordable phones are becoming increasingly difficult to find. It is advisable for ordinary consumers to extend their upgrade cycles—such as replacing batteries or upgrading internal components—to prolong their device usage. This can help cope with the relatively long usage periods. Shopping on second-hand platforms is also an option, but the uncertainty of second-hand phones is higher, requiring careful discernment.

In the long run, phone prices will inevitably return to reasonable levels, but this will be a slow process. Although current prices are trending upward, economic principles suggest that prices will eventually stabilize. With continuous technological progress and industry upgrades, manufacturing efficiency will improve, and production costs are expected to gradually decrease. For example, advances in chip manufacturing processes may lower chip costs; new materials and technologies could help control raw material costs for components.

Additionally, increased market competition will push manufacturers to optimize cost structures and improve product value. Companies that innovate technologically and manage efficiently will be more competitive, driving overall industry costs downward. However, this process is lengthy. Technological progress and industry upgrades take time, and market supply-demand adjustments also require a period. During this process, prices may fluctuate within a certain range but tend to gradually return to a reasonable level.